By SUSIE BLANN (Related Press)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia thwarted an assault by 20 Ukrainian drones focusing on Moscow-annexed Crimea in a single day, the Russian Protection Ministry stated Saturday.
Fourteen drones have been shot down by Russian air defenses and an extra six have been jammed electronically, the ministry stated in a Telegram put up. No casualties or harm have been reported. Kyiv officers neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s involvement within the assaults.
As movies circulated on Russian social media Saturday showing to point out smoke rising above a bridge linking Russia to Crimea, the annexed peninsula’s Moscow-appointed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, reported that Russian air protection had additionally prevented an assault there by capturing down two Ukrainian missiles.
The bridge was not broken, he stated, though site visitors was briefly halted. An adviser to Aksyonov, Oleg Kryuchkov, claimed that “a smoke display was put up by particular companies.”
Russia’s Overseas Ministry “strongly condemned” the tried assault on the Crimean bridge. The ministry stated in a press release that such “barbaric actions” by the Armed Forces of Ukraine “won’t go unanswered.”
Shortly after reporting the downing of the 2 Ukrainian missiles, Aksyonov stated Russian air protection had shot down one other missile over the Kerch Strait.
The bridge connecting Crimea and Russia throughout the Kerch Strait carries heavy significance for Moscow, each logistically and psychologically, as a key artery for navy and civilian provides and as an assertion of Kremlin management of the peninsula it illegally annexed in 2014.
Final week, a Ukrainian sea drone hit a Russian tanker close to the bridge, whereas an assault on the bridge final month killed a pair and critically wounded their daughter, leaving a span of the roadway hanging perilously. The harm seemed to be much less extreme than that attributable to an assault in October, but it surely once more highlighted the bridge’s vulnerability.
The tried drone and missile assaults observe three consecutive days of drone assaults on the Russian capital, Moscow. Firing drones at Russia, after greater than 17 months of battle, has little obvious navy worth for Ukraine however the technique has served to unsettle Russians and produce dwelling to them the battle’s penalties.
Drone assaults have elevated in current weeks each on Moscow and on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 — a transfer that a lot of the world thought of unlawful.
Elsewhere, Russia claimed Saturday it had regained management of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s easternmost Luhansk area in an in a single day counterattack.
A 73-year-old lady was killed early Saturday morning in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv area, in line with regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov.
Ukrainian inner affairs minister Ihor Klymenko stated a police officer was killed and 12 folks wounded when a guided Russian aerial bomb hit town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Zaporizhzhia area. 4 of the wounded have been additionally law enforcement officials, he stated.
Within the neighboring Kherson province, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin stated that two folks have been wounded in Russian assaults on Saturday. A 70-year-old was wounded when a shell hit a residential constructing within the village of Ponyativka, whereas a person, 72, was damage when a drone dropped explosives on the village of Odradokamyanka.
A 70-year-old man was wounded when a shell hit a residential constructing within the village of Ponyativka, whereas a 72-
Native officers stated explosions rang out Saturday morning within the central Ukrainian metropolis of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, however that there have been no recognized casualties.
On Ukraine’s Black Coastline, town of Odesa opened a number of seashores for the primary time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Odesa Gov. Oleh Kiper stated that six seashores have been open, however he harassed that accessing seashores throughout air raid alerts was forbidden.
The strategic port and key hub for exporting grain has been topic to repeated missile and drone assaults — notably since Moscow canceled a landmark grain deal final month amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories — whereas Russian mines have often washed up on town’s seashores.
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Related Press author Elise Morton in London contributed to this report.
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Observe AP’s protection of the battle in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
