Russian Navy Thwarts Drone Attack on Crimea's Main Port

Russian Navy Thwarts Drone Attack on Crimea's Main Port

Crimea - The Governor of Sevastopol in Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhaev said, the Russian Navy thwarted a drone attack on the city on Thursday (8/12/2022) morning. The strategic port city has suffered a number of similar attacks in recent months, with Russian authorities accusing Ukraine of being behind them.

Located on the southwest coast of Crimea, which joined Russia after a referendum in 2014, Sevastopol is considered to be of strategic importance due to the special status as a federal city granted to it by Russian authorities. That is, although it is a city and not a region, it is led by a governor.

Two other cities with this status in Russia are Moscow and Saint Petersburg. "In the morning, a Russian Black Sea Fleet ship on duty shot down a UAV over the sea," Razvozhaev posted a short message on his Telegram channel as quoted by Russia Today.

He went on to praise Russian military personnel, reporting that they had "as always" handled threats in a professional manner. The Crimean governor's comments came after local residents began describing on social media the loud explosions they had heard in the city.

According to local media, a similar incident had occurred in Sevastopol in the early hours of Tuesday. In October, about nine aerial and seven naval drones attempted to attack Russian Black Sea Fleet ships anchored at the Sevastopol Naval Base.

The Russian Defense Ministry said at the time that the attack had been repelled, with one ship sustaining minor damage as a result. Russian officials said that data extracted from a drone strike last October showed that UAVs and naval drones had been launched from Ukraine's Black Sea coast, not far from the port city of Odessa, and had been moving along the Black Sea-brokered corridor. United Nations.

In July, a UAV, thought to have been from Ukraine, attacked the Black Sea Fleet's base in Sevastopol. Ukraine considers Crimea an inalienable part of its territory, temporarily occupied by Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly vowed to retake the peninsula.

In late April, Russian President Vladimir Putin explained that the military offensive against Ukraine launched by Russia months earlier had attempted, among other things, to ensure the peace and security of Crimea. In May, the Russian head of state reiterated that Ukraine had been openly preparing for an invasion of its country's historical lands, including Crimea. He claimed that the Russian military campaign was pre-emptive.