A fire broke out in Crimea after a suspected drone attack on an oil depot. This happened as fighting increased on the southern Ukrainian front and shelling left Russian border villages without power. The attacks occurred one day after Kyiv announced that preparations for a counteroffensive were almost complete, aiming to expel Russian forces from the territory they took over in the east and south following their 2022 invasion.
On Friday, Russia bombed a bloc of flats in the central Ukrainian city of Uman, which resulted in the death of 23 people, including a baby boy. On Saturday, officials in Moscow-controlled Crimea, towns under Russian occupation in southern Ukraine, and a governor of a border region reported attacks. In Sevastopol, a fuel reserve burned, causing clouds of smoke to reach high into the sky.
The Kremlin has not commented on the attack. The fire was caused by a suspected drone, but Russian-installed authorities attempted to downplay the incident amid rising security fears on the peninsula. Ukraine did not claim the Crimea attack, but military intelligence implied it was revenge for Uman.
The governor of Sevastopol urged Crimeans to “remain calm” and said “nobody was hurt.” He estimated that the fire was “around 1,000 square metres.” In southern Ukraine, Russian occupation authorities said that a key city they control, Novaya Kakhovka, had come under “intense shelling” and had been cut off from power.
The shelling of Novaya Kakhovka came a day after Russian shelling killed a 57-year-old woman in a southern Ukrainian village, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky vowing a response. The governor of the border Belgorod region said that five frontier villages were without power after Ukrainian shelling.
Elsewhere, Russia accused Poland of a “blatant violation” of international norms after Warsaw impounded a school run by the Russian embassy in the Polish capital. Moscow called the move an “illegal act” and promised “harsh” consequences against Warsaw.
