Ukraine attempted mass-drone ‘terrorist attack’ on Crimea – Moscow
The Russian military has repelled a mass overnight Ukrainian drone raid on the Crimean Peninsula, neutralizing all aircraft, the Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Friday.
In a statement, the ministry said that the “Kiev regime attempted to stage terrorist attacks on Russian territory using aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.” It added that the air defenses had detected a total of 42 drones.
As a result, nine Ukrainian drones were shot down over Crimea, while another 33 were suppressed by electronic warfare systems and crashed short of their intended targets, the ministry stated.
The attack on Crimea was also confirmed by Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev, who said, citing preliminary data, that several UAVs were destroyed over the sea near the cape of Chersonesus in the western part of the peninsula. He added that the local emergency services had not registered any damage to the civilian infrastructure.
This comes after the Defense Ministry said that Russian air defenses had shot down a Ukrainian Soviet-era S-200 missile over Kaluga Region southwest of Moscow, which it said was used to stage a terrorist attack on Russian civilian facilities.
Amid reports of a missile attack, the Russian authorities briefly closed the airspace over Moscow’s Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, with TASS news agency saying civilian planes were bypassing Kaluga Region and the neighboring Tula and Lipetsk Regions.
The Crimean Peninsula, which is home to a key Russian naval base, has been a frequent target of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks in recent months. On Tuesday, Kirill Budanov, the head of the Ukrainian military’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) – which Russia says orchestrated a deadly blast on the Crimean Bridge last year – promised more attacks on the peninsula “in the next few days.”
