Kyiv. Russian air defense systems shot down several Ukrainian drones on Friday in southern Russia and occupied areas of Crimea. The officers provided this information. Kiev has taken the 22-month-long war beyond Ukraine’s borders by sharpening its strategy to target the Moscow-occupied peninsula.
Air raid sirens continued to wail in Crimea’s largest city, Sevastopol, and traffic was halted for a second consecutive day on a bridge linking the peninsula to Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, which Moscow illegally annexed a decade ago. The Russian Defense Ministry said its security forces intercepted 36 drones over Crimea and one over Krasnodar, part of an emerging pattern of intensified Ukrainian air strikes in recent days.
A Ukrainian Neptune destroyer missile was also destroyed in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, the ministry said. Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the development came after three people were injured Thursday night in other Ukrainian rocket and drone attacks on the Russian border city of Belgorod and the surrounding area. Officials there said 25 people were killed in the latest Ukrainian attack on Belgorod.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised to attack more targets on the Crimean peninsula and inside the Russian border areas this year. Their goal is to destabilize Russians as President Vladimir Putin wants to remain in power for six more years after winning the March 17 elections.
After the drone attack inside Russia last year, Zelensky had said that Ukraine had developed a weapon that could attack up to 700 kilometers away. He had said last month that Kiev is planning to make 1 million drones, which have become an important weapon of war.
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Tag: Russia, russia ukraine war, ukraine
first published : January 5, 2024, 10:05 PM IST
