Drone shot down over Russia’s Black Sea fleet HQ building in occupied Crimea
- Sevastopol city governor, Russia’s Mikhail Razvojaev, blamed drone on Ukraine and said it fell on roof and caught fire after being shot down
- On July 31 a drone attack in headquarters courtyard wounded five and led to cancellation of celebrations planned for Russia’s ‘Fleet Day’
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
A drone was shot down over the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on Saturday, a local official said.
“The drone was shot down just above the fleet headquarters” in the port city of Sevastopol, city governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram, blaming the attempted attack on Ukrainian forces.
“It fell on the roof and caught fire,” he said, adding that there was no major damage or victims. It was the second attempted attack against the fleet headquarters in less than a month.
Images and videos circulating on social media, whose authenticity could not be independently verified, showed a cloud of smoke billowing up in the sky following an explosion. “Keep calm and stay home for the next hour if possible,” Razvozhayev wrote.
On July 31 a drone attack in the headquarters courtyard wounded five people and led to the cancellation of celebrations that had been planned for Fleet Day.
Saturday’s attack is the latest to target Russian military infrastructure in Crimea, a Black Sea peninsula that Moscow seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014, with air defence systems activated in Evpatoria in the west of the region.
On Thursday, Russian forces shot down a drone near an airbase in Sevastopol.
03:16
Ukraine-backed forces possibly behind strikes in Russian-annexed territory
On Tuesday, explosions ripped through a military base and ammunition depot.
In early August, a blast at the Saki airbase killed one person and wounded several others.
Without openly claiming responsibility for attacks, the Ukrainian leadership has said it is expecting further blasts in the future, adding that Crimea is not a safe place.
Additional reporting by dpa
