Zelenskyy: Ukraine strikes damage Russia's Black Sea naval base
Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, jet-powered aerial drones and sea drones struck a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast in a "unique" nighttime operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday, August 12.
Cutting-edge drones developed by Kyiv since Russia's invasion more than four years ago have repeatedly targeted Russian ships in the Black Sea, including warships and oil tankers. Both countries have Black Sea shorelines.
Ukraine's uncrewed fleet has succeeded in limiting the movements of Russia's once-dominant Black Sea navy, Kyiv officials say, calling it one of the country's biggest accomplishments of the war.
Ukrainian officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin remains bent on prosecuting the war, despite his larger army's slow and costly battlefield progress and US diplomatic efforts to find a settlement. Putin is planning "an additional rapid mobilisation of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year," Zelenskyy said on social media late Tuesday, August 11, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.
The Ukrainian military "carried out a unique operation targeting the naval base in Novorossiysk the last major stronghold of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea," Zelenskyy said in a social media post Wednesday, August 12, adding that the attack struck air defences, piers and other port infrastructure in the Krasnodar region city.
Krasnodar region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said hundreds of Ukrainian drones attacked Novorossiysk, Anapa and Gelendzhik, as well as the Temryuk district of the region, overnight. Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences downed more than 500 Ukrainian drones.
An eight-year-old child was killed in the Novorossiysk attack, and a person wounded when his house in the Temryuk region was hit later died in hospital, Kondratyev said, adding that 12 other people in the region were wounded. Debris from downed drones fell on four industrial plants and 21 residential buildings, according to Kondratyev, though officials gave no further details of the damage.
Novorossiysk is also home to a key international oil terminal the Grushovaya oil transshipment complex, one of the largest transshipment hubs for oil and petroleum products in southern Russia.
Last February, the US State Department had objected to Ukraine's attacks on Novorossiysk, saying they affected US oil interests in Kazakhstan. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium operates a pipeline from Kazakhstan's Caspian coast to Novorossiysk, handling much of the crude exports from three major Kazakh fields in which US energy companies Chevron and ExxonMobil hold stakes.
In illegally annexed Crimea, air defences downed 115 Ukrainian drones over Sevastopol overnight, the city's Russia-appointed head, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said, adding that 10 apartment buildings and 25 private houses were damaged.
Ukraine's air force said Wednesday, August 12, that Russia fired 138 long-range strike drones, along with an unspecified number of missiles, at Ukraine overnight, with damage recorded at 16 locations across the country.
In Ukraine's southern Kherson region, a large-scale Russian drone attack overnight killed two people and wounded two others, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said Wednesday. The attacks also destroyed a shopping mall in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, authorities said.
(Sourced through PTI)
