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A kamikaze drone strike hit Russia’s Navy headquarters in Crimea and sparked a huge explosion today, in another suspected Ukrainian raid.
Smoke was seen billowing through the air this morning following the attack, which came despite frantic attempts from Putin’s forces to shoot down the UAV, as seen in a video where repetitive gunfire is heard.
The naval HQ suffered a direct hit, said reports while terrified Russian tourists fled the popular summer peninsula.
Governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhaev confirmed the attack, writing on Telegram: ‘Unfortunately, [the drone] was not shot down, although they worked on the bay with small arms. [It] went low. There were no victims.’
He warned: ‘The tenacity of these Ukro-Reich morons is amazing. Everyone, if possible, needs to be home in the next hour.’
Russia also suffered incoming attacks on resort Yevpatoriya, north of Sevastopol, where one man was heard saying: ‘This is not funny. Let’s pack up and get out of here. These are no fireworks.’
The air defence system was activated in the Western Crimea, the head of Putin’s regime in annexed Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said.
‘The target is hit. There is no damage, nor any wounded. Our military clearly, professionally and effectively carry out their tasks. I ask everyone to remain calm and trust only official information.’
Initially as the wave of attacks came in, Razvozzhaev said: ‘I am at my workplace in the government. As well as many of the townspeople, I heard the clapping in the [city] centre.
‘Similar sounds were heard in the Strelka area a little earlier. The air defence was operating in the bay. Naval artillery [operated] in the centre. The same as yesterday. According to preliminary data [they were shooting down drones. Targets were hit. We remain calm. The military is doing their job perfectly. Let’s support them.’
However, the fear of attacks on Crimea – a new development in the war this month – is palpable among tourists who are fleeing the peninsula.
It is the latest in a string of mystery blasts, widely believed to be inflicted by Ukrainian forces, deep in the occupied peninsula.
Intelligence officials revealed last night how the strikes have crippled the invaders’ military capabilities, while also displaying Kyiv’s ability to wreak havoc on Russian logistics.
It follows a huge blast at a Russian air base in Crimea last week. Western officials have now revealed the incident knocked out half of Russia’s Black Sea naval aviation force.
A source said: ‘They’ve lost their flagship Moskva, they lost Snake Island, they lost half of their naval aviation package and their military headquarters was struck. I think we can assume attacks by Ukrainians behind enemy lines.’
A Ukrainian drone strike has hit Russia’s Navy headquarters in Crimea, causing a huge explosion
Smoke was seen billowing through the air this morning following the attack, which came despite frantic attempts from Putin’s forces to shoot down the UAV
The naval HQ suffered a direct hit, said reports while terrified Russian tourists fled the popular summer peninsula
Russia also suffered incoming attacks on resort Yevpatoriya, north of Sevastopol, where one man was heard saying: ‘This is not funny. Let’s pack up and get out of here. These are no fireworks’
The explosions were reported at an air base near the village of Belbek, on the south-west coast near Sevastopol, HQ of Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea fleet.
On the opposite end of the peninsula, the sky has been lit up at Kerch near a huge bridge to Russia, with what Moscow has claimed was fire from its air defences.
Inside Russia, two villages have been evacuated after explosions at an ammunition dump in Belgorod province, more than 60 miles from territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.
Kyiv also announced a strike on a bridge at the Kakhovska Dam, near Kherson – one of the last routes for Russia to supply its troops on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
Such attacks were having a ‘significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership’, said the official.
Russia has denied any aircraft were damaged in what it called an accident at the base, although satellite pictures showed at least eight warplanes completely burned out.
The recent explosions have had a major psychological effect on Moscow’s leadership, with its invasion of Ukraine at ‘near operational standstill’, Western officials have said.
More than half of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet combat jets were put out of action in blasts last week at the Russian-operated Saky military airfield in western Crimea, an area Moscow previously considered secure, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The Kremlin is busy seeking to allocate blame for the debacle and President Putin is struggling to hide Ukraine’s success from the Russian population.
This comes as thousands of Russians fleeing Crimea have streamed into the country, officials said on Friday, and as a fire at a munitions depot near the Russian village of Timonovo has led to the evacuation of two villages in Russia’s Belgorod region.
Roughly 1,100 people reside in the villages of Timonovo and Soloti, around 15 miles from the Ukrainian border. There were no casualties in the blaze late Thursday, Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
In the attack on the Crimean airbase last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed.
The strike demonstrated both the Russians’ vulnerability and the Ukrainians’ capacity to strike deep behind enemy lines, previously not thought possible.
Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility, but President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the blasts in Crimea, which Russia has blamed on ‘sabotage.’
On Ukraine’s capabilities, one Western official said: ‘Ukraine is now consistently achieving kinetic effects deep behind Russia’s lines.
‘The incidents have been having a material effect on Russia’s logistics support, but as importantly, there’s a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership.’
Recent explosions deep behind Russia’s lines in Crimea have had a major psychological effect on Moscow’s leadership, with its invasion of Ukraine at ‘near operational standstill’, Western officials have said. Pictured: Explosions are seen on Crimea in the distance on August 9
More than half of the Russian navy’s Black Sea Fleet combat jets were put out of action in blasts last week at the Russian-operated Saky military airfield in western Crimea, an area Moscow previously considered secure, according to Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD)
They added that the attacks had forced the Black Sea Fleet into a defensive posture and stymied Russia’s ability to launch a successful amphibious assault on Odesa on Ukraine’s coast, which would cut off much of Ukraine’s access to the sea.
It comes as the war has entered a phase of ‘near operational standstill’, with neither side’s ground forces having enough concentrated combat power to launch effective offensive actions, the Western official said.
Russia is facing an increasingly acute shortage of stocks, even of basic munition, as well as manpower issues as it struggles to reconstitute its forces.
‘There was a point when there was constant shelling, there was a real high point, particularly around the battle for the Donbas,’ they said.
‘We aren’t at that high point anymore.
‘The whole tempo of the campaign has slowed down, partly because both sides have become more conscious that this is a marathon not a sprint and that expenditure rates and conserving their munitions is important’.
At least a dozen civilians were killed by Russian strikes in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv this week, according to the MoD.
‘This civilian suffering provides an unusually stark example of Russian cynicism,’ the official said, adding that Moscow was not planning to launch an offensive in the area or gain any major operational advantage from the bombardment.
Meanwhile, the head of the GCHQ intelligence service said Moscow had failed to gain ground in cyberspace against Ukraine.
‘So far, President Putin has comprehensively lost the information war in Ukraine and in the West,’ Sir Jeremy Fleming wrote in an op-ed in The Economist.
‘Just as with its land invasion, Russia’s initial online plans appear to have fallen short.’
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in televised remarks Friday that statements from Ukrainian officials about striking facilities in Crimea mark ‘an escalation of the conflict openly encouraged by the U.S. and its NATO allies.’
Ryabkov said Russian officials had warned the U.S. against such actions in phone calls with high-level members of the Biden administration.
He added that ‘deep and open U.S. involvement’ in the war in Ukraine ‘effectively puts the U.S. on the brink of becoming a party to the conflict.’
‘We don’t want an escalation,’ Ryabkov said. ‘We would like to avoid a situation where the U.S. becomes a party to the conflict, but so far we haven’t seen their readiness to deeply and seriously consider those warnings.’
The strike demonstrated both the Russians’ vulnerability and the Ukrainians’ capacity to strike deep behind enemy lines, previously not thought possible. Pictured: An image of a decimated Russian jet involved in the blast
Clips which emerged from the scene appeared to show the charred remains of a Russian fighter jet and the smouldering wreckage of several cars on torn up tarmac (pictured)
Satellite pictures released on last week showed the devastation at the Russian air base, hit in the attack that suggests Kyiv may have obtained new long-range strike capability with potential to change the course of the war. Pictured before (top) and after (bottom) the blasts
In response to the attacks, Putin sacked his Black Sea naval commander earlier this week.
The removal of Igor Osipov marked the most prominent sacking of a military official in the nearly six months since Russia launched its war on Ukraine.
State-owned RIA said the new chief, Viktor Sokolov, was introduced to members of the fleet’s military council in the port of Sevastopol.
One source said it was ‘normal’ that the appointment was not publicly announced at a time when Russia is conducting what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine.
Speculation has followed that Osipov was sacked following the sinking of the Moskva flagship on April 14, but the naval commander appears to have kept his job until recently.
Osipov was absent from the Red Square ‘victory parade’, with Moscow claiming he was ‘not in the mood’ to appear following the loss of the flagship.