Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has claimed that an attack destroyed Russian “Kalibr” cruise missiles, which were being transported by train to the city of Dzhankoi in Russian-occupied Crimea. Moscow has strongly denied this statement and has said that it had neutralized a drone attack.
“An explosion in the town of Dzhankoi in temporarily occupied northern Crimea destroyed Russian ‘Kalibr NK’ cruise missiles during their transportation by rail,” the intelligence department of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram. This source did not provide further details or confirm the direct involvement of the Ukrainian army in these “destructions”.
The spokeswoman for the Southern Command of the Ukrainian army, Natalia Goumenyuk, quoted by the media, recalled for her part that Kyiv considered it important to “hit Russian logistics” to weaken its adversary while Dzhankoi is “a central point of rail interconnections used to supply to the Russian army.
Russia has ignored these claims, swearing to have shot down Ukrainian drones in Crimea on Monday, two days after a visit by Russian President Vladimir Putin to the peninsula annexed in 2014 by Moscow.
On Monday night, “aircraft defense repelled a drone attack near the town of Djankoi,” Russia’s Investigative Committee, the body responsible for the most important investigations, said in a statement. “The targets of all the downed drones were civilian infrastructure.”
The governor of Moscow in Crimea, Sergei Aksionov, reported that one person was injured after debris engulfed him when a drone hit a house and a store.
An adviser to Aksionov, Oleg Krioutchkov, for his part, accused the Ukrainian authorities of having carried out this attack to “take revenge” for Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, a few days after his ninth birthday.
On Saturday, on the occasion of this anniversary, Vladimir Putin made a surprise trip to Crimea. In particular, he visited the Russian base in Sevastopol, the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. In the process, the Russian president made his way to Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city conquered by Russian forces after a siege that reduced much of the city to ruins.
Since the launch of Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Crimea has been repeatedly targeted by drone strikes. In early March, Russia claimed to have shot down a “massive strike” by Ukrainian drones and reported that ten planes were shot down.
Russia has a military base in the Dzhankoi region. In August 2022, this base was devastated by an ammunition depot explosion. Moscow had finally admitted to “sabotage”.
