Ukrainian counteroffensive: kyiv attacked the Crimean peninsula with missiles

A satellite image shows smoke rising from a Russian Navy headquarters in the Black Sea after a missile attack, in Sevastopol, Crimea (Reuters)

The head of Sevastopol, in Russian-annexed Crimea, declared Monday that air defense forces were repelling an airstrike on the peninsula.

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“Our military is repelling a missile attack. According to preliminary data, the anti-aircraft defense shot down a missile near the Belbek airfield. The work continues,” the governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, appointed by Moscow, said on Telegram.

Ukraine has attacked Crimea throughout the Russian offensive, but attacks on military facilities there have intensified recently as kyiv vows to take back the peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

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Authorities had declared an air alert throughout the region, Razvozhayev said on Telegram at 8:57 pm (17.57 GMT).

About an hour later, Razvozhayev announced on Telegram the end of the anti-aircraft alert.

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Russian air defenses also went into action in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, where seven Ukrainian drones were destroyed, according to the Russian Defense Ministry on Telegram.

The governor of the region, Viacheslav Gladkov, stated that there were no casualties in Belgorod.

The attacks on Russian territory, infrequent at the beginning of the offensive, have intensified in recent months, with kyiv increasingly claiming responsibility.

A total of 34 Russian soldiers have died as a result of the missile attack that Ukraine launched last Friday against the headquarters of the General Staff of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, according to what the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces said today on their Telegram account.

Among the dead would be the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov.

In addition, 105 “occupants” were injured in the attack on this historic building in the port of Sevastopol, on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea that Russia annexed in 2014 and where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based.

According to the note from the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, “the headquarters (of the Russian Fleet) cannot be repaired.”

In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified its operations against the Russian forces that control Crimea, with attacks that have used naval and aerial drones and missiles that have managed to destroy defense systems and cause damage to Russian military ships and submarines, according to several spokespersons. from Kiev.

Ukraine announced today the arrival of the first American M1 Abrams tanks, just as the Ukrainian Army is rushing the last weeks before the arrival of bad weather to advance towards the south of the Zaporizhizhia region, scene of the bloodiest fighting on the entire front. .

“The Abrams are already in Ukraine and are preparing to reinforce our brigades,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram, expressing his gratitude to the United States “for fulfilling the agreements.”

This Monday, The New York Times reported, citing two Pentagon sources, that the tanks had arrived “several months earlier than initially planned and just in time for Kiev to use them for the counteroffensive.”

US President Joe Biden promised 31 Abrams to Ukraine last January.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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