Russian authorities said they shot down Ukrainian drones on Saturday in Crimea, while Ukrainian officials said Russian forces continued efforts to seize one of the few towns in eastern Ukraine not already under their control. The Russian military also continued its strikes in northern and southern Ukraine. In Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, Russian authorities said local air defenses shot down a drone over the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol. It was the second drone incident at the headquarters in three weeks and followed explosions at a Russian airport and ammunition depot on the peninsula this month. Oleg Kryuchkov, an aide to Crimea’s governor, also said Saturday that “attacks by small drones” had triggered air defense systems in western Crimea. “Air defense systems successfully hit all targets above the ground over Crimea on Saturday morning. There are no casualties or material damage,” his boss, Sergei Aksionov, told Telegram. Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on Telegram that the city’s air defense systems were back in action late Saturday. The incidents underscored the vulnerability of Russian forces in Crimea. A drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters on July 31 injured five people and forced the cancellation of Russia’s Navy Day celebrations. This week, a Russian ammunition depot in Crimea was hit by an explosion. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were destroyed at an air base in Crimea. Ukrainian authorities have not publicly claimed responsibility. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referred to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the explosions in Crimea. Meanwhile, fighting in areas of southern Ukraine just north of Crimea has intensified in recent weeks as Ukrainian forces try to drive Russian forces out of towns they have seized since the beginning of the six-month war. A Russian missile attack injured 12 people, including three children, and destroyed houses and an apartment building on Saturday in the city of Voznesensk in the Mykolayiv region, the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said. Two of the children were in serious condition and the governor said one lost an eye. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian airstrike hit targets in Melitopol, the largest Russian-controlled city in the Zaporizhzhia region, 100 kilometers (65 miles) north of Crimea, according to local officials deployed by Ukraine and Russia. The Ukrainian military announced on Saturday that it had destroyed a valuable Russian radar system and other equipment stationed in occupied areas in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. It was not clear if this was the hit in Melitopolis. “Tonight there were loud explosions in Melitopol, which the whole city heard,” said the Ukrainian mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Ferodov. “According to preliminary data, (it was) a precise hit on one of the Russian military bases, which the Russian fascists are trying to restore for the umpteenth time in the area of the airport.” In the east, Ukraine’s military General Staff said on Saturday that fighting had intensified around Bakhmut, a small town whose capture would allow Russia to threaten the two largest remaining cities in the eastern Donbass region. Bakhmut has for weeks been a key target of Moscow’s eastern offensive as the Russian military tries to complete a months-long campaign to capture all of Donbas, where pro-Moscow separatists have declared two republics that Russia recognized as sovereign states early in the war. A local Ukrainian official said clashes continued Saturday near four settlements on the border of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, which together make up the disputed Donbas region. Luhansk Governor Serhi Haidai did not name the settlements. Russian forces captured almost all of Luhansk last month and have since focused on seizing Ukrainian-held areas of Donetsk. Russian shelling killed seven civilians on Friday in Donetsk province, including four in Bakhmut, Governor Pavlo Kirilenko wrote on Telegram on Saturday. Taking Bakhmut would give the Russians room to advance on the main Ukrainian-held towns of the province, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Ukraine said Sloviansk and Kramatorsk were targeted on Friday, along with the Kharkiv region in the north, home to Ukraine’s second-largest city. Local authorities reported new Russian shelling overnight on a wide front, including the regions of northern Kharkiv and Sumy, which border Russia, as well as the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk and Mykolaiv. In other developments on Saturday: —- Pedestrians in central Kiev took pictures of a large column of burned and captured Russian tanks and infantry vehicles displayed on a central boulevard in the Ukrainian capital. The report comes just days before Ukraine’s independence day in August, which also coincides with six months since the Russian invasion. —-The Joint Coordination Center in Istanbul on Saturday approved the movement of four outbound ships carrying 33,300 metric tons of food from Ukraine under the Black Sea Grain Agreement. The ships will depart from Ukrainian ports on Sunday. The agency will conduct another 10 vessel inspections on Sunday. The deal seeks to make tons of grain exports stuck in war-torn Ukraine safe in the Black Sea. —- The interior ministry of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic said an improvised bomb exploded near the zoo in Mariupol, which the city’s mayor was due to visit, but the mayor was not injured. Mariupol came under the control of rebels and Russia after months of heavy fighting that destroyed the city. —— Kozlowska reported from London.
