Ukraine defends the use of naval drones in the Black Sea, where it harasses Russian ports in the annexed Crimean peninsula and mainland Russia in order to force the Russians out of their territorial waters, while positional fighting continues around the world. forehead.

“Any ‘bombing’ against Russian ships or the Crimean bridge is a logical and effective action against the enemy,” said the head of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), Vasyl Malyuk, alluding to the successive attacks with drones in the Black Sea.

For this reason, he added, “if the Russians want the ‘bangs’ to stop, they must take advantage of their only possibility: to leave the territorial waters of Ukraine and our land.”

“And the sooner they do it, the better,” he concluded, expressing his absolute conviction in the Ukrainian victory.

To the drone attack the day before, launched against the Crimean peninsula and the Russian port of Novorossiysk – which are home to the largest bases of the Russian Black Sea Fleet – and during which the Russian landing ship “Olenogorsky Gornyak” was allegedly damaged. , followed another at night against a tanker.

Although Russia did not acknowledge that “Olenogorsky Gornyak” was hit, it did report damage to the Russian tanker “Sig” in the engine compartment “next to the starboard waterline.”

However, the Russian authorities denied that an oil spill had taken place after the incident and announced preparations for the repair of the ship.

The attack, during which several explosions were heard on the peninsula, forced the Russian authorities to stop traffic on the Crimean bridge in the Kerch Strait for several hours at 11:26 p.m. local time (20:26 GMT) and turn off their lights.

So far, the Russian Defense Ministry has remained silent on the matter.

The Crimean bridge, which links the annexed peninsula with the Russian mainland, has become a priority objective for the Ukrainian Army and has been damaged twice.

For this reason, Russia limited the navigation of all surface and submarine ships, as well as the anchoring of any type of vessel in the areas surrounding the bridge.

The flight and ditching of aircraft is also strictly prohibited, as is the presence of people in the water and other activities at sea.

For its part, this Saturday Ukraine declared six ports on the Russian Black Sea coast a “war risk zone” in which it describes navigation as dangerous, including Novorossiysk, attacked the day before.

The area considered a zone under military threat includes Anapa, Gelnszhik, Tuapse, Sochi and Taman, in addition to the aforementioned Novorossiysk, according to a statement from the State Hydrographic Office.

Meanwhile, Ukraine enters its third month of counteroffensive without great achievements on the front, mainly due to the density of Russian fortifications and the intense mining, according to what Ukrainian Brigadier General Dmitro Gueguera declared today.

“The strips of fortifications contain anti-tank minefields, barriers in the form of anti-tank trenches, pyramids and hedgehogs, barbed wire,” he said, noting that to overcome these obstacles Ukraine needs “a significant number of engineering units and sappers.”

For its part, Russia today claimed to have taken control of the town of Novoselivske, in the Lugansk region, eastern Ukraine, and advanced on the Kupiansk front in the Kharkiv region.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, “in the framework of offensive actions on a wide sector of the front, assault detachments improved forward positions in the towns of Olshana and Pershitraneve in the Kharkiv region” and caused about 140 casualties to the enemy. .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project