MOSCOW: Russia said it had thwarted a coordinated Ukrainian attack on Crimea early, while drones also targeted Moscow, disrupting air traffic in the capital, and caused a fire at an oil depot in the southwest of the country.
Ukraine in recent days has launched a series of strikes on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea, including the Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet’s facilities, seeking to undermine Moscow’s war efforts in the critical region.
Attacks deep inside Russia, far from the front lines, have also increased, with Moscow’s mayor saying at least two drones were shot down in the region of the capital early on Sunday.
In an opinion piece late on Saturday, Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security Council, urged Kyiv’s allies to speed up the delivery of weapons, saying this was the only way to end the war.
“For example, the complete or partial elimination of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, which is a doable task, should significantly accelerate the process of Russia’s search for a way out of the ongoing war,” Danilov wrote on the Ukrainska Pravda news site.
Russian air defence systems destroyed at least six drones targeting Crimea from different directions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday.
The report on the Telegram messaging app did not say whether any damage or casualties had been caused on the Crimea peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Kyiv in a widely condemned move in 2014, eight years before Russia’s full-fledged invasion.
In the Moscow region, a drone was destroyed over the Istra district and another over the Ramensky district, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, adding there were no casualties or damage from drone debris.
