Ukraine fired up 42 drones at the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula overnight, the Kremlin has said.
While not confirmed by Kyiv, the attack would be one of the largest coordinated strikes to date on Russian-held territory.
Russia’s defence ministry said that a S-200 missile was shot down over the Kaluga region which borders Moscow.
In Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, nine drones were destroyed by air defence forces while 33 were suppressed electronically and crashed without reaching their targets, it said.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea, said on Telegram that a number of drones were destroyed over Sevastopol’s outskirts.
The attack comes after the death of Wagner chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose plane crash landed killing nine others on Wednesday.
Following his death, reports from Ukraine’s national resistance centre said sources in Belarus, where some of Prigozhin’s fighters have been based, had seen mercenaries dismantling camps and forming convoys to leave the country.
“The convoys are likely heading towards the border with Russia,” the centre said.
The report followed the posting online of a threatening message by a masked man claiming to be a Wagner fighter.
“There’s a lot talk right now about what the Wagner Group will do,” he said. “We can tell you one thing. We are getting started, get ready for us.”
