Moscow claimed to have shot down in the Black Sea on the night of Friday to Saturday three Ukrainian naval drones which targeted the Crimean bridge, a new attack attributed to Kiev which this week claimed its first offensive carried out with drones from Russian territory.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Ukrainian drones were destroyed around 2:20 a.m. Moscow time (2320 GMT), before reaching this bridge built in the wake of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and regularly taken for target by Kyiv.
On August 12, two Ukrainian missile attacks were foiled over this strategic bridge in the Kerch Strait, while a previous offensive in July caused extensive damage to the road section of the bridge. , which is also used to transport military equipment to the Russian army fighting in Ukraine.
Ahead of this supposedly foiled offensive by Moscow, Kiev claimed a symbolic victory on Friday by claiming to have carried out its first drone attack this week from Russian territory, where it had so far carried out acts of sabotage and armed incursions.
During the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, Ukrainian drones thus targeted the airport of the city of Pskov, nearly 700 kilometers from Ukraine, in a border region of Estonia and Latvia to the west and from Belarus to the south.
“The drones used to attack the Kresty airbase in Pskov were launched from inside Russia,” Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on Telegram on Friday.
The Kremlin for its part declined to comment on this claim.
According to Mr Budanov, two Russian military planes were destroyed and two badly damaged in the attack on Pskov.
Budanov’s remarks come at a time when speculation is rife about how Ukraine is stepping up drone attacks in Russia as part of its counter-offensive.
For his part, President Vladimir Putin on Friday praised an “invincible” Russia, to teenagers on the occasion of the start of the school year, a year and a half after launching the invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“I understood why we won during the Great Patriotic War: defeating a people with such a state of mind is impossible. We were absolutely invincible and today we still are,” he said. with reference to World War II.
Children have returned to school, both in Ukraine and in Russia, despite the war.
In kyiv, police reported bomb threats targeting schools they said inspected but did not evacuate.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was pleased that his country had reached a target 700 kilometers away, without mentioning specific cases like that of Pskov.
The United States, Ukraine’s main military and financial support, on Friday hailed “significant progress” on the front in the past 72 hours in the South.
On the Russian side, the army claimed to have captured new “key positions on the heights” near the city of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine, the only sector of the front where Moscow troops are at offensive.
On the economic front, two new cargo ships have left a Ukrainian port and are sailing in the Black Sea in a maritime corridor established by Kiev despite threats of Russian reprisals after the abandonment of the agreement on grain exports.
The question of the international transport of these agricultural products, both Ukrainian and Russian, vital for the food supply of poor countries, will be the subject of discussions between Mr. Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday in the Russian city of Sochi, on the shores of the Black Sea.
The head of Turkish diplomacy Hakan Fidan for his part met Friday with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu after having met the day before with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, each time on the question of cereals.
Mr. Lavrov once again demanded Thursday “guarantees” as to the facilitation by the West of exports of Russian grains and fertilizers, hampered by sanctions.
09/02/2023 09:17:45 – Kiev (Ukraine) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
