Russia downs 20 drones over Crimea following spate of attacks on Moscow
Russia thwarted an attack by 20 Ukrainian drones targeting Crimea overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.
Fourteen drones were shot down by Russian air defenses and a further six were jammed electronically, the ministry said in a Telegram post, AP reported. No casualties or damage were reported.
Kyiv officials neither confirmed nor denied Ukraine’s involvement in the attacks. Crimea was reunited with Russia in 2014.
As videos circulated on Russian social media Saturday appearing to show smoke rising above a bridge linking Russia to Crimea, the peninsula’s Moscow-appointed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, reported that Russian air defense had also prevented an attack there by shooting down two Ukrainian missiles.
The bridge was not damaged, he said, although traffic was briefly halted. An adviser to Aksyonov, Oleg Kryuchkov, claimed that “a smoke screen was put up by special services.”
In Moscow, officials said Friday they had destroyed a drone aimed at the capital, the latest in a string of attacks on the city in recent days.
A Ukrainian drone was destroyed over the western outskirts of Moscow, Defence Ministry said, adding there were no casualties or damage as a result of the incident. In July, Ukrainian drone strikes on Crimea blew up an ammunition depot and damaged the bridge across the Kerch Strait linking the peninsula to Russia’s mainland.
In Ukraine, Russian attacks on Saturday killed a policeman and injured 12 other people in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
A man was also killed in the Kharkiv region, according to local authorities.
Three drones were destroyed over Zaporizhzhia, and a missile attack targeted Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Governor Sergiy Lysak.
Also Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the firing of all the heads of regional conscription centers, part of his crackdown on corruption since the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine more than 17 months ago.
The step was taken after Ukrainian security services presented details of 112 criminal cases against draft board officials suspected of taking bribes and engaging in corrupt practices.
Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the jobs should instead go to war veterans, including those with injuries.
Zelenskyy previously fired senior officials suspected of corruption. That has sent a signal to Western allies providing Kyiv with tens of billions of dollars in military aid that Ukraine is serious about clamping down on graft, which has long plagued the country’s military.