Ukrainian drone attack hits Crimea ammunition depot, says pro-Moscow official
An ammunition depot was struck during a Ukrainian drone attack on Dzhankoi in Crimea early on Monday, with Russian air defence forces intercepting or suppressing 11 drones over the area, a Russian-installed official has said.
Reuters reports that Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean peninsula, also said a residential building was damaged in the area.
It was not immediately clear whether the ammunition depot was directly hit by a drone or if it was damaged by falling drone debris.
Russia has a military airbase near Dzhankoi. Ukrainian officials have long said the city and surrounding areas have been turned into Moscow’s largest military base in Crimea.
Aksyonov also said on Telegram that “for safety reasons” railway and road traffic in the area was suspended.
Key events
Summary of the day so far …
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Russia said it had neutralised two Ukrainian drones over Moscow in the early hours of Monday, with one crashing close to the defence ministry in the city centre. Officials said the drones hit non-residential buildings in the capital and that there were no casualties. The attack came one day after Kyiv vowed to “retaliate” for a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa. “A Kyiv regime attempt to carry out a terrorist act using two drones on objects on the territory of the city of Moscow was stopped,” Russia’s defence ministry said. “Two Ukrainian drones were suppressed and crashed. There are no casualties.”
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Russian media reported a third drone crashed into a cemetery in the Moscow region.
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An ammunition depot was struck during a Ukrainian drone attack on Dzhankoi in Crimea early on Monday, with Russian air defence forces intercepting or suppressing 11 drones over the area, a Russian-installed official has said.
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Interfax reports train traffic in Crimea has begun moving again after a delay caused by the earlier drone attacks. The Russian Federation unilaterally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
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Ukraine claims to have recaptured a small amount of territory in the Bakhmut region, according to the latest operational briefing by the deputy defence minister.
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Tass reports that one civilian has been killed, and another injured, by Ukrainian shelling into occupied Kherson on the left-bank of the Dniepr River.
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Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, has posted to Telegram to claim that Ukraine is not actively attacking across the frontline in the region, and that “their command is actively carrying out the delivery of personnel to positions, making up for losses.”
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Russia attacked the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Odesa again and kept up a barrage that has damaged critical port infrastructure in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said. At least one person was killed and 22 wounded in the strike early on Sunday. An overnight drone attack then destroyed a grains depot and injured four port employees. The city has come under repeated attack since Moscow last week pulled out of a deal allowing the export of Ukrainian grain.
Without providing any evidence, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has claimed that the cathedral in Odesa was struck by a Ukrainian air defence missile.
Peskov said “Our armed forces never strike at social infrastructure facilities, let alone temples, churches and other similar facilities, so we do not accept such accusations, this is an absolute lie.”
The UN has recorded thousands of civilian casualties since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine’s civilian power infrastructure has been repeatedly struck by missiles, and a large number of hospitals, schools and train stations have been hit.
Andriy Yermak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, has shared this image of the empty Kakhovka reservoir, drained after the destruction of the dam, describing it as “ecocide”.
Interfax in Russia reports that train traffic in Crimea has begun moving again after a delay caused by the earlier drone attacks.
Here are some more images sent to us over the news wires from Moscow.
Ukraine claims to have recaptured a small amount of territory in the Bakhmut region, according to the latest operational briefing by the deputy defence minister.
In her latest operational update, Hanna Maliar said:
The enemy continues to focus its main efforts on Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Mariinka axes, severe hostilities continue.
The enemy assaults simultaneously on several axes, tries to oust our troops from their positions, but faces a decent resistance.
On Bakhmut axis, during the last week, a successful offensive has been carried out on the southern flank, and now our troops continue to advance there gradually but confidently.
In a week, as a result of improvement of operational (tactical) position and alignment of the front line on Bakhmut axis, the territory of 4 sq km was liberated. In general, during the offensive on this direction, the liberated area is 35 sq km.
On the northern flank of Bakhmut the fighting continues, the situation is unchanged.
In the Bakhmut axis the enemy is on the defensive. Russians are trying to regain its lost positions in the southern flank of Bakhmut.
Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, has posted to Telegram to claim that Ukraine is not actively attacking across the frontline in the region, and that “their command is actively carrying out the delivery of personnel to positions, making up for losses.”
“They bring more and more soldiers, who will continue to be sent to the slaughter,” he added.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting that there are “local emergency power outages” in Odesa. The region has been repeatedly targets by Russian missile and drone attacks in recent days.
Tass reports that one civilian has been killed, and another injured, by Ukrainian shelling into occupied Kherson on the left-bank of the Dniepr River. It cited the emergency services of the Russian occupying authorities.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, in his daily operational update, details shelling of Avdiivka among other settlements, and states that houses were damaged in Toretsk and Siversk. However he reports “there was no information about the wounded and dead in the region” in the preceding 24 hours.
Donetsk is one of the regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation claimed to annex in 2022.
Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency, citing emergency services, is suggesting that another drone was downed over Moscow region. It reports on its Telegram channel:
A helicopter-type drone without an explosive device fell in the Zelenogradsky district of Moscow region, on the territory of the central cemetery. No one was injured, emergency services told RIA Novosti.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia’s ministry of defence has issued a further statement about what it claims was a thwarted drone attack on the Crimea peninsula. On its official Telegram channel it reported:
During the night of 24 July, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by seventeen unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on objects on the territory of the Crimean peninsula was thwarted.
Fourteen Ukrainian UAVs were suppressed by electronic warfare, of which eleven drones crashed in the Black Sea, and three more fell on the territory of the peninsula.
In addition, three UAVs were destroyed by air defence systems. There are no casualties as a result of the thwarted terrorist attack.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, having occupied and unilaterally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russian authorities have tended to describe any military action by Ukraine against Russian-held targets in Ukraine as “terrorism”.
Here’s a full report on drones hitting two non-residential buildings in central Moscow early today:
Ukrainian drone attack hits Crimea ammunition depot, says pro-Moscow official
An ammunition depot was struck during a Ukrainian drone attack on Dzhankoi in Crimea early on Monday, with Russian air defence forces intercepting or suppressing 11 drones over the area, a Russian-installed official has said.
Reuters reports that Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed governor of the Crimean peninsula, also said a residential building was damaged in the area.
It was not immediately clear whether the ammunition depot was directly hit by a drone or if it was damaged by falling drone debris.
Russia has a military airbase near Dzhankoi. Ukrainian officials have long said the city and surrounding areas have been turned into Moscow’s largest military base in Crimea.
Aksyonov also said on Telegram that “for safety reasons” railway and road traffic in the area was suspended.
Vladimir Putin has revealed his “continuing concern” over potential threats Yevgeny Prigozhin and his Wagner mercenary force may pose to him through “symbolism and posturing” during a meeting with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, according to a US thinktank.
The Institute for the Study of War said the Russian president made several significant gestures during the meeting in St Petersburg on Sunday. They included taking Lukashenko to visit Kronstadt, a historically significant island fortress, and touring it with St Petersburg governor Alexander Beglov and Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s younger daughter – both Beglov and Shoigu being personal enemies of Prigozhin, it said.
The public display in Kronstadt “was almost certainly intended to signal Putin’s and his loyalist cadre’s defeat of Prigozhin’s rebellion and Prigozhin’s St Petersburg-based supporters”, the thinktank said in its analysis, posted on Twitter.
Putin also made an unusual effort to take photographs with crowds of local Russian citizens, including children, while at Kronstadt, likely to present himself as a popular and beloved leader among the Russian people.
These symbolic gestures indicate that Putin is concerned about his perceived popularity, the security of his regime, and the array of factions competing for power within the high echelons of Russian governance.
Prigozhin led a short-lived uprising against Moscow’s military leadership last month before agreeing to a Lukashenko-brokered deal in which charges against him and his Wagner forces would be dropped in return for his exile in Belarus.