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Moscow has launched a renewed wave of strikes on southern Ukraine, as Russian-backed authorities in Crimea said almost 30 Ukrainian drones had targeted the annexed peninsula overnight.
In an update on Tuesday morning, Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 36 Shahed drone strikes and deployed six Kalibr cruise missiles in an overnight barrage. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted all six cruise missiles and 31 of the Shahed drones, the military said in a statement.
The Kalibr missiles and the "vast majority" of the Iranian-made kamikaze drones were destroyed in the southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, the air force said. A fire broke out at an industrial facility in Mykolaiv after it was hit shortly before 2 a.m. local time, the city's mayor, Oleksandr Sienkevych, said on Telegram. The fire was extinguished around 5:30 a.m., he said, adding air raid alarms were called off not long after 4 a.m.
"Port infrastructure facilities and several private homes were damaged by debris from the downed missiles and the blast wave from the downing," Sergey Bratchuk, a Ukrainian official in Odesa, wrote on Telegram, stating an elderly man had been taken to hospital for treatment.
Separately, Sergey Aksyonov, the Moscow-installed governor of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, said on Tuesday morning that Russian air defenses shot down 9 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the east of the peninsula, with a further 19 drones "suppressed by electronic warfare." No casualties were reported, Aksyonov said.
Newsweek is unable to verify casualties. Neither Kyiv nor Moscow releases detailed casualty figures.
Russia frequently launches strikes at Ukrainian targets from the Black Sea and Crimea and has previously accused Kyiv of zeroing in on Crimea with unmanned technologies. Kyiv has repeatedly vowed to retake Crimea, and analysts have speculated the peninsula could be a target for Ukraine's ongoing counter-offensive.
On Monday morning, Russia's National Anti-Terrorism Committee said two Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicles (USV) targeted the Kerch Bridge, which links Crimea to mainland Russia, just after 3 a.m. local time. Two adults were killed and one child was injured, the committee said in a statement.
The rail crossing was undamaged, but the road bridge was hit, causing traffic to last for several hours. In October 2022, the Kerch Bridge, a crucial, 12-mile-long route for Russian resources, was damaged in an explosion for which Ukraine never claimed official responsibility.
In a statement on Tuesday, Russia said its military had "delivered a group strike of retaliation with high-precision sea-based weapons," targeting Ukrainian facilities involved in producing and deploying USVs.
Storage facilities holding around 70,000 tons of fuel were "destroyed" around Mykolaiv and Odesa, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement, adding all the planned targets "where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared" had been hit.
Experts told Newsweek on Monday that Russian forces were poorly equipped to fend off Ukrainian USV attacks, with the Kerch Bridge a difficult target to protect.
"Of course, there will be a response from Russia," Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, according to a Kremlin readout.
On Sunday, Russia said it had "thwarted" a Ukrainian attack of seven airborne drones and two unmanned underwater vehicles on Sevastopol, the Crimean port city hosting Russia's Black Sea fleet.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for comment via email.
Update 07/18/23 at 10:05 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a statement from Russia's Defense Ministry.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more