Ukraine has launched drone attacks on the major navy port of Sevastopol in a move that destroyed seven aerial and two underwater drones.
The Russian ministry said two aerial drones were shot down over the Black Sea while five were intercepted by Russia’s electronic warfare forces.
It comes after Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia has a “sufficient stockpile” of cluster bombs and reserves the right to use them in retaliation against Ukrainian forces, after Washington supplied Kyiv with the widely banned munitions.
The Russian president’s threat, during an interview with state TV, came as an Estonian intelligence chief claimed that Ukraine was on the brink of a major breakthrough in its counteroffensive, after destroying Kremlin command posts and making gains near Bakhmut.
Meanwhile, pro-Russian authorities in Crimea claimed to have thwarted a Ukrainian drone attack overnight at the port of Sevastopol, which houses Moscow’s Black Sea fleet, as Ukrainian officials said one civilian had been killed and eight wounded in Russian attacks in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian and Polish officials said that a large convoy carrying fighters from the Wagner private army was spotted entering Belarus from Russia, as Minsk’s defence ministry released footage showing what it claimed were Wagner fighters instructing Belarusian soldiers at a military camp.
Polish deputy minister Stanislaw Zaryn said Warsaw believed there “may be several hundred” Wagner fighters currently in Belarus.
