Two people were killed in a Ukrainian missile attack near the city of Simferopol in annexed Crimea on Thursday evening, the Russian-installed head of the peninsula Sergey Aksyonov said on Telegram.
An “unoccupied agricultural facility” near the coastal city of Alushta was also damaged in a missile attack, Aksyonov said, as Russia’s Defence Ministry reported downing three ATACMS missiles over the peninsula and two drones over Russia’s Belgorod region overnight. The ministry also said that Russia’s Black Sea Fleet had destroyed three “unmanned Ukrainian Navy boats heading towards the Crimean Peninsula”.
Atesh, a Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar partisan group operating behind Russian lines on the peninsula, reported that it had attacked a Russian military base in Alushta overnight, adding it was likely that “significant damage was inflicted to equipment [and] many occupiers were killed” in the attack on what it described as an “important communications and command point” for Russian forces in Crimea.
The Crimean Wind Telegram channel reported that explosions had been heard in “almost all” parts of the peninsula, and that Russian air defences were “not very effective” in intercepting the missiles.
At least six ATACMS missiles hit a Russian military communications hub in Semydvirya near Alushta, Crimean Wind said, adding that “high-ranking Russian military personnel were present at the time”.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty affiliate Krym.Realii said its readers had reported seeing explosions in the cities of Simferopol, Saky, Alushta, Yalta, Dzhankoy and Yevpatoria. Six explosions were heard in the area around the peninsula’s administrative centre Simferopol, it said, and at least three flashes were seen near Belbek airfield outside the city of Sevastopol, which was also attacked earlier in May.
Crimea has come under increasing attack by the Ukrainian military in recent weeks, as its forces target the over 200 Russian military facilities estimated to have been established on the peninsula since Russia annexed it in 2014.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Ukrainian Railways reported damage to transport infrastructure in the country’s eastern Kharkiv region on Friday morning as Russia “continued its targeted attempts to disrupt the railway system” in the area, where it opened a new front in its war with Ukraine earlier in May.
