Tensions are rising in Crimea amid fighting between Russia and Ukraine. A a drone has attacked on Headquarters of the General Staff of the Russian Navy on the Black Sea in the port of Sevastopol, in the peninsula annexed by the Kremlin. Russian authorities have not reported any casualties, as confirmed by the city’s governor, Mihai Razvozhaev. But they let slip that responsibility lay with Volodymyr Zelenskyi’s Ukrainian army, which has already used drones on other occasions.
“I’m from the Navy staff. A drone crashed into the roof 25 minutes ago (…). There are no victims,” the governor wrote on his Telegram channel. Razvozhaev also called on the population to remain calm and, if possible, to stay at home for at least an hour.
Basically, he stated that “unfortunately (the drone) was not brought down, though it was fired upon from the bay”. Shortly after, he corrected and assured that the drone had been shot down by air defenses. It landed on the roof of Naval Headquarters, where it caught fire without causing much damage.
[Ucrania se envalentona tras las líneas enemigas: crecen ataques y sabotajes en Crimea y Belgorod]
The governor of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, activated the confirmation of air defense in the western region. “The target is destroyed without casualties or damage“, he said on social networks, in a message in which he also called for calmness of the population, according to the TASS agency.
Ukraine has remained silent following an increase in attacks on the Crimean peninsula, controlled by Russia since 2014. Also this week, an ammunition depot exploded in the area and a drone was shot down over the city of Kerchaccording to Russian authorities.
[Ucrania reaccionó tarde a la invasión rusa porque no confiaba en EEUU tras su error en Afganistán]
last July 31 At least five people were injured after a a drone dropped an explosive device in the Headquarters Yard of the Naval Headquarters. This necessitated the cancellation of Navy Day celebrations, which are observed on that date.
800 Ukrainian victims
Along with condemning the drone attack, Russia boasted on Saturday that it had inflicted hundreds of casualties on Ukrainian forces. The Russian Ministry of Defense assured that during the past 24 hours the Ukrainian forces suffered more than 800 deathsincluding “up to twenty American mercenaries”.
[Ucrania, a la desesperada: convierte drones de espionaje en misiles y los lanza contra Rusia]
In an attack by Russian aviation against positions of the nationalist formation “Kraken” and mercenary units in the region of Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, “over 100 fighters were killedincluding up to twenty American mercenaries,” defense spokesman General Igor Konashenkov said.
In his morning segment, he added that up to 130 Ukrainian soldiers had died in another attack in the same region, this time with precision ground weapons. Konashenkov indicated that in the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, next to the city of Velikomialovka, the Russian tactical aviation “virtually destroyed” the 110th Ukrainian Territorial Defense Battalion causing over 350 casualties, no fewer than 200 of whom were fatal.
According to the military spokesman, in the same region and in Nikolaev, more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed by Russian artillery fire. In addition, according to Konashenkov, the Ukrainian Airborne Forces lost more than 200 men in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic as a result of air-to-ground missile attacks.