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Russians plunge into darkness after monster drone attack

Ukraine launched a massive drone attack overnight on military and energy facilities in Russia and the occupied Crimean peninsula. Moscow said on Friday that over 100 unmanned weapons were involved in the operation.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed its forces intercepted and destroyed 102 UAVs in four different regions, while another six drone boats were shot down in the Black Sea. While the ministry did not disclose the extent of damage from the attack, several explosions were reported in the Russian city of Novorossiysk and the Kremlin-backed governor of Sevastopol said an electrical substation was damaged and power was cut.

Russia suffers one of the deadliest attacks of the war

This was announced by a source from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Kiev independent that the attack was a joint operation by the SBU and Ukrainian military intelligence. “Today’s operation showed that the Russians are unable to protect their key naval bases in Sevastopol and Novorossiysk,” the source said.

Residents of Novorossiysk in Russia’s Krasnodar region said local oil infrastructure had been attacked and shared videos online in which explosions could be heard and air defense operations could be seen. According to preliminary information, ten drones were shot down, causing “local fires” but no fatalities, Krasnodar Territory Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. “I ask the residents of Novorossiysk to remain calm and not to post photos and videos of the operation of our air defense systems on social networks,” he wrote on Telegram.

Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, separately claimed that debris from “downed UAVs fell on the substation,” causing a partial power outage. Early Friday, he said the outages would last “about a day” while workers restored the power grid. He later announced the cancellation of classes in “all schools, secondary vocational education institutions and kindergartens” and said the city would take measures to save energy during repair work. This included stopping trolleybus traffic and turning off the lights in the city and in shopping centers.

Ukraine has been attacking infrastructure and military targets on Russian soil for several months. Kiev is also currently grappling with a major new Russian offensive launched in northeastern Ukraine earlier this month, raising fears that Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city – could soon fall.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters during a visit to China that his attacks on the Kharkiv region were launched in response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region. “I have said publicly that if things continue like this, we will be forced to create a security zone, a sanitary zone,” he said, according to the Associated Press. “That’s what we do.”

Putin also said that there are currently no plans to take the city of Kharkiv.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

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