Russia claimed to have destroyed or intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones overnight from Thursday to Friday, during attacks launched against the southwest of Russian territory and annexed Crimea. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry detailed that it had neutralized 51 aerial drones attacking Crimea, 44 over the Krasnodar region, six over the Belgorod region and another over the Kursk region. “During the night, naval aviation and patrol boats of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed six naval drones in the waters of the Black Sea,” the source added.
The large city of Sevastopol, in Crimea, was “partly” deprived of power because a power sub-station was damaged by “debris from downed drones”, Mikhail Razvojaïev, the local governor appointed by Moscow, said on Telegram. This official, in a separate message, announced the temporary closure of schools and kindergartens in Sevastopol, due to these power cuts. He said repairs to the local power grid could take “about a day.”
Death of a mother and her 4-year-old child
In the Krasnodar region, local authorities said on Telegram that two Ukrainian drones had struck and set fire to a refinery in Tuapse, on the Black Sea coast, without causing any casualties. Several Russian media outlets broadcast unauthenticated videos purporting to show this attack.
The Russian army very regularly claims to have repelled night attacks by Ukrainian drones, but rarely claims to have shot down so many. Earlier, the governor of the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, announced the death of a mother and her 4-year-old child during a drone attack on the village of Oktyabrsky. A car in which four people were traveling was targeted by a drone, the mother died on the spot and her 4-year-old child died of his injuries in hospital, said Vyacheslav Gladkov, specifying that another drone had targeted a gas station near the village of Bessonovka.