A gasoline depot within the port metropolis of Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea was engulfed in an unlimited fireplace early Saturday, which an area Kremlin-appointed official mentioned was brought on by a drone strike.
The metropolis on the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, is dwelling to the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet and is vital to its dominance within the sea. Preliminary data indicated that the fireplace was brought on by a drone, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, wrote on the Telegram messaging app. He didn’t say who might need been behind an assault.
Russian officers have blamed Ukrainian forces for repeated drone strikes on Sevastopol, on the peninsula’s southwestern tip. Ukraine usually maintains a coverage of strategic ambiguity about strikes in Crimea.
Photographs and video footage posted on-line, together with by the governor, confirmed a column of darkish smoke spewing into the sky and spreading throughout the encompassing areas.
The fireplace at Kazachya Bay was burning an space of about 10,000 sq. ft, Mr. Razvozhaev mentioned. He mentioned that there have been no casualties and that no civilian constructions had been threatened, however that the blaze was tough to comprise due to the big quantity of gasoline that was burning.
The Crimean Peninsula has been a staging floor for different assaults and an more and more enticing goal for Ukraine — particularly within the run-up to a broadly anticipated counteroffensive.
While the small print of that marketing campaign are a intently guarded secret, army analysts predict that Ukraine is perhaps seeking to drive a wedge by way of Russian occupied territory alongside the southern coasts of the Black and Azov Seas, close to Crimea.
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Uman assault: Rescuers have been nonetheless combing the rubble within the central Ukrainian metropolis of Uman on Saturday after a Russian strike there a day earlier killed 23 individuals, together with 5 youngsters. Officials mentioned that the rescue operation had been happening for greater than 30 hours.
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Russian shelling: In Ukraine’s southern Kherson area, shelling within the city of Bilozerka hit a hospital and several other personal houses, killing a 57-year-old girl in her own residence and injuring three extra individuals, the regional army administration mentioned on Friday night.
Source: www.nytimes.com