Drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea HQ in occupied Crimea
A drone attack on Saturday targeted the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, with no injuries, according to the governor of the city on the annexed Crimean peninsula.
“The drone was shot down right above the Fleet Headquarters, fell on the roof and caught fire,” Mikhail Razvojaev wrote on Telegram.
The incident “did not cause any serious damage” or injuries, he said, blaming the attack on Ukrainian forces.
This is the second drone attack on the headquarters of the facility in Sevastopol in less than a month.
On 31 July, a drone landed in the yard of the Fleet Headquarters, injuring five employees and causing the cancellation of all festivities planned for the Russian Fleet Day celebrated that day.
Accused by Russia of being behind the attack, Ukraine denied its involvement, calling the accusations a “provocation”.
The new attack comes amid a spate of explosions and attacks on Russian military infrastructure in Crimea.
On Thursday evening, Russian forces shot down a drone near a military airfield in Sevastopol.
On Tuesday, explosions occurred at a military base and an ammunition depot in Crimea, which Russia described as an act of “sabotage”.
In early August, an explosion of ammunition intended for military aviation near the Saki military airfield in Crimea left one person dead and several injured.
US giving more high-tech military equipment to Ukraine
The US will give Ukraine Scan Eagle surveillance drones, mine-resistant vehicles, anti-armor rounds and howitzer weapons to help Ukrainian forces regain territory and mount a counteroffensive against Russian invaders.
A senior defense official told reporters that a new $775 million aid package will include 15 Scan Eagles, 40 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles known as MRAPs with mine-clearing rollers, and 2,000 anti-armor rounds that can help Ukraine troops move forward in the south and east, where Russian forces have placed mines. The official said the US is looking to help shape and arm the Ukrainian force of the future as the war drags on.
“These capabilities are carefully calibrated to make the most difference on the battlefield and strengthen Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tweeted his appreciation for the package, saying “We have taken another important step to defeat the aggressor.”
This latest aid comes as Russia’s war on Ukraine is about to reach the six-month mark. It brings the total US military aid to Ukraine to about $10.6 billion since the beginning of the Biden administration. It is the 19th time the Pentagon has provided equipment from Defense Department stocks to Ukraine since August 2021.
The U.S. has provided howitzer ammunition in the past, but this is the first time it will send 16 of the weapon systems. The aid package also includes 1,500 anti-tank missiles, 1,000 javelin missiles and an undisclosed number of high-speed, anti-radiation or HARM missiles that target radar systems. The Ukrainian forces have been successfully using various precision artillery systems to try and hold off Russian forces and take back territory Moscow has gained.
Twelve injured in Russian attack near nuclear power station
Twelve Ukrainians were injured in a Russian bombing in Voznesensk, a town near a nuclear power plant in the south of the country on Saturday, Ukrainian authorities said, accusing Moscow of “nuclear terrorism”.
“According to preliminary information, 12 people, including three children, were injured. Two children are in serious condition” after the attack in the Mykolayev region, the prosecutor’s office said on Telegram.
Earlier in the day, regional governor Vitaly Kim reported on the same network that nine people were injured, including four children aged between three and 17, who were, according to him, “all in serious condition”.
Voznesensk is about 20 kilometres as the crow flies from Ukraine’s Privdennooukraïnsk nuclear power plant, the second most powerful in Ukraine, which has a total of four atomic power plants.
A Russian strike in the 30-kilometre zone around the plant “is another cynical act of nuclear terrorism by Russia,” the operator of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants Energoatom wrote on Telegram.
“It cannot be ruled out that this missile was fired in the direction of the Pivdennukrainsk NPP, which the Russian military already tried to seize in early March,” Energoatom said.
Macron slams Russian invasion, hours after brokering nuclear inspection deal
French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia launched a “brutal attack” on Ukraine in an imperialist, revanchist violation of international law.
Macron made the comments during a ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of Allied landings in Nai-occupied Provence during World War II, and just hours after he spoke to Putin and helped broker a deal to allow UN nuclear inspectors to visit a critical plant in Ukraine.
Macron, who tried tirelessly but unsuccessfully to prevent the invasion and long vaunted the importance of dialogue with Putin, has grown increasingly critical of the Russian president as the war bears on.
He warned French citizens that the resulting energy and economic crisis confronting Europe isn’t over, calling it “the price of our freedom and our values.”
“Since Vladimir Putin launched his brutal attack on Ukraine, war has returned to European soil, a few hours away from us,” Macron said Friday.
Macron said Putin is seeking to impose his “imperialist will” on Europe, conjuring “phantoms of the spirit of revenge” in a “flagrant violation of the integrity of states.”
Read more in our story here.
Ukraine airstrike hits targets in Russian-occupied city
A Ukrainian airstrike hit targets in the largest Russian-occupied city in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to Ukrainian and Kremlin-backed local officials.
The Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol said preliminary reports pointed to “a precise hit” on a Russian military base. The head of the Kremlin-backed administration said the attack damaged residential areas and slightly injured one civilian.
In its daily update, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said intensified combat took place around Bakhmut, a small city whose capture would enable Russia to threaten the two largest remaining Ukrainian-held urban centers in the eastern Donbas region.
Bakhmut has for weeks been a key target of Moscow’s eastern offensive as the Russian military tries to complete a months-long campaign to conquer all of the Donbas, an industrial region that borders Russia where pro-Moscow separatists have self-proclaimed a pair of independent republics.
A local Ukrainian official reported sustained fighting Saturday morning near four settlements on the border between Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which together make up the contested region.