KYIV, Ukraine — Explosions have hit Russian targets in and near occupied Crimea since Wednesday night, as Ukraine appeared to be ramping up its attacks on Russian military strongholds ahead of a protest. expected work.
In Crimea, drones hit a border post in Simferopol on Tuesday night, according to photos and videos shared on social media and Geolocation by Radio Liberty, a television station funded by the US government. Ukraine did not directly claim responsibility for the incident, but Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman Andriy Chernyak said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “Of course, the enemy must be cut off from Crimea.”
Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014, has served as an important springboard for Moscow’s all-out invasion and a hub for supplying troops and weapons to the occupying forces in the region. southern Ukraine.
Just east of Crimea, inside Russian territory in the village of Volna, Russian authorities reported an explosion at a fuel depot following a pre-dawn drone strike on Wednesday. Video shows black smoke rising from a fire on a nearby bridge connecting Crimea with Russia.
Russian state media report that the fire was caused by a drone that crashed into an oil facility, in the Krasnodar region of Russia.
Ukrainian forces have been attacking inside Crimea for months, but attacks have increased in recent days as Kiev has carried out what its officials describe as the final stage of the plan for a counterattack to regain the captured territory.
US officials said the Ukrainian military was supported by training and equipment from Western allies. General Mark Milley, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States and its NATO allies helped train and supply about nine Ukrainian brigades, including several ready-made light infantry units. conduct both offensive and defensive operations.
“The Ukrainians now have offensive capabilities, they can conduct offensive operations, and they also have defensive capabilities, significantly enhanced from what they had just a year ago in terms of intelligence operations.” usually,” General Milley told Foreign Affairs magazine in the comments. published on Tuesday.
While Ukraine has not yet revealed a detailed plan for a counterattack, military officials have described recent explosions in Crimea and other Russian-occupied areas as part of an effort to disrupt capacity. Russian logistics. Over the weekend, the spokesperson of the Southern Military Command of Ukraine, Natalia Humeniuk, said that an attack on an oil depot in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, as part of preparations for the “wide-ranging, all-out offensive that everyone has been waiting for”.
Separately, Russia’s top security agency speak on Wednesday that it had arrested seven individuals who were planning to carry out “high-level acts of terror and sabotage” in Crimea with the cooperation of Ukrainian military intelligence. Among the targets were a number of officials installed by the Kremlin, including the governor of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, who, according to the agency, the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s successor, failed to publicize detailed evidence for his claims.
Across the occupied areas, the Ukrainian military appears to be stepping up attacks. The Ukrainian Air Force said on Wednesday morning that in the past 24 hours, it had carried out attacks on Russian military concentrations, ammunition depots, Russian command posts and other targets. The claims cannot be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials reported attacks from Russian planes, drones or artillery on cities and towns across the country.
In the capital Kyiv, explosions echoed again into the night as air defenses engaged Russian attack drones, with regional officials saying all were shot down. According to Ukrainian officials, a Russian plane also carried out attacks on a village in the northeastern region of Sumy, and drones targeted the Dnipro region in central Ukraine and Mykolaiv in the south. There were no immediate reports of casualties in those incidents.
Ivan Nechepurenko contribution report.
