Russia says it repelled Crimea drone attack

Russian warships from the Black Sea repelled a drone strike in Sevastopol Bay, a Russian official in Crimea said on Saturday.

In a post on social media, Russian statesman and mayor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said that “no facilities in the city were hit”. “The situation is calm and under control. All operational teams are on standby,” she said.

Russian state news agency TASS reported that ferries and boats were temporarily blocked from accessing the bay.

THE CNN cannot independently confirm or verify Razvozhayev’s claim. There was also no recognition of the incident from the Ukraine side.

Sevastopol, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. It is the largest city on the peninsula and has been an important port and naval base for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has promised to “liberate” the entire territory of the country, including Crimea, which has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

The news comes amid the death of a Russian journalist who worked for a major Kremlin-backed media outlet, who was killed in a shooting accident at a military training camp in Crimea on Friday, Russian officials and media said. state-owned.

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian official said on Friday that his country’s troops were about to take control of a major highway between the crucial cities of Svatove and Kreminna in the Luhansk region.

Serhiy Hayday, head of Luhansk’s regional military administration, posted on social media on Friday that the road was “practically under Ukrainian control”. Cities are the main targets of the Ukrainian Armed Forces trying to advance east into Luhansk, which is predominantly under Russian occupation.

THE CNN cannot independently verify the claim, but maintaining the road would deny Russia the ability to access Luhansk from the north.

In a separate post Saturday morning, Hayday said Ukraine had carried out airstrikes on Russian positions and air defense systems. “Missile and artillery units hit enemy positions where batteries of self-propelled artillery systems and other important military targets were located,” Hayday said.