Ukrainian drones strike ‘Crimea and Moscow,’ Kremlin claims

Russia said it had thwarted a coordinated Ukrainian attack on Crimea early on Sunday, while drones also targeted Moscow, disrupting air traffic in the capital, causing a fire at an oil depot in the southwest of the country.

Attacks deep inside Russia, far from the front lines, have increased in recent months with Moscow’s mayor saying at least two drones were shot down in the region of the capital early on Sunday.

Reuters could not independently verify Sunday’s reports and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

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 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,” Mr Danilov wrote on the Ukrainska Pravda news site.

During the week, Ukraine launched a massive attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Crimea which injured 24 people and set alight two ships that were under repair, Russian authorities have said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine launched 10 missiles at the Sevastopol Shipyard in Russian-annexed Crimea early on Wednesday and three drones at Russian ships in the Black Sea.

Prior to that attack, Russian launched an air strike on Kyiv last Sunday, with blasts ringing out across the city and its region for almost two hours and drone debris falling on several of the city’s central districts, officials said.

Ukraine’s Land Forces said that the country’s air defence systems destroyed 25 out of 32 Russia-launched Iran-made Shahed drones, most of which targeted Kyiv and the wider region.