A massive Ukrainian drone attack in Crimea causes power outages in Sevastopol

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A massive Ukrainian drone attack in Crimea caused power outages in the city of Sevastopol early Friday and set a refinery in southern Russia on fire, Russian authorities said.

The drone strikes marked Kiev’s attempt to hit back during Moscow’s offensive in northeastern Ukraine, which has increased pressure on outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces awaiting delayed shipments of key weapons and ammunition from Western partners.

Ukraine has not commented on the attack or claimed responsibility for it.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defense shot down 51 Ukrainian drones over Crimea, another 44 over the Krasnodar region and six over the Belgorod region. It said Russian warplanes and patrol boats also destroyed six maritime drones in the Black Sea.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol, the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, said the drone strike damaged the city’s power plant. He said it could take a day for power to be fully restored and warned residents that there would be power outages in parts of the city.

“Municipal services are doing their best to restore the power grid as quickly as possible,” he said in a statement.

Razvozhayev also announced that schools in the city would be temporarily closed.

Previous Ukrainian attacks damaged aircraft and a fuel depot at the Belbek air base near Sevastopol, according to satellite images released by Maxar Technologies.

In the Krasnodar region, a drone strike early Friday caused a fire at an oil refinery in Tuapse that was later contained, according to authorities. There were no casualties.

Ukraine has repeatedly attacked refineries and other energy facilities deep inside Russia, causing significant damage.

Ukrainian drones also attacked Novorossiysk, a key port on the Black Sea. Krasnodar Territory Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said fragments from downed drones caused several fires, but there were no injuries.

Belgorov Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a Ukrainian drone hit a vehicle, killing a woman and her four-year-old child. In another attack, a fuel tank at a gas station in the area was set on fire, he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops struggled to stop the Russian advance in the northeastern Kharkiv region that began late last week.

The city of Vovchansk, just five kilometers from the Russian border, has been a focal point of fighting in recent days. Ukrainian authorities have evacuated around 8,000 civilians from the city. The Russian army’s usual tactic is to reduce cities and villages to rubble through air strikes before their units invade.

Russia has also tested defenses at other points along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line that winds from north to south through eastern Ukraine. That line has barely changed in the last 18 months of a war of attrition. The latest Russian attacks occurred in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as in the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the north and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. The obvious aim is to exploit depleted Ukrainian resources and exploit weaknesses.

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