Black Sea Fleet repels drone attack on Crimea port

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet repelled a drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol in the early hours of yesterday, the Moscow-installed governor of the city said through social media.

“According to the latest information: one surface drone was destroyed … the second one exploded on its own,” governor Mikhail Razvozhaev wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Now the city is quiet.”

No damage was reported, Razvozhaev added.

Passenger ferry transport had been suspended in the Black Sea port city, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing Sevastopol transport authorities. No reason was given, but the agency said traffic had been suspended in the past due to drone attacks or storms.

Sevastopol, along with the rest of the Crimean peninsula, was declared annexed by Russia in 2014 but is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine.

Russia on Sunday said its forces had advanced in Bakhmut while a top Ukrainian commander said his troops were holding the frontline through the city, all but destroyed in some of the bloodiest combat of the 14-month war.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces had secured two blocks in western districts and airborne units were providing reinforcements to the north and south. Russia sees Bakhmut as a stepping stone to more advances in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi shared images on the Telegram messaging app of him poring over a map with three other uniformed men, with the caption “Bakhmut frontline. Our defence continues.”

“We hit the enemy, often unexpectedly for him, and continue to hold strategic lines,” he wrote.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the private Wagner military force which is leading the Bakhmut assault, has claimed 80 percent control of the city. Kyiv has repeatedly denied claims its troops are poised to withdraw.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to keep defending the city.

“It is impossible for us to give up on Bakhmut because this will [help] expand the battle front and will give the Russian forces and Wagner chances to seize more of our lands,” Zelensky said in an interview with Al Arabiya news channel published on Sunday.

Also on Sunday, the Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region denied a report by a US think tank that Ukrainian forces had taken up positions on the Dnipro river’s eastern bank.

“There is no enemy foothold on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro river … our military completely controls that territory,” Vladimir Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel.

Citing Russian military bloggers embedded with Moscow’s forces, the Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine had “established positions” on the eastern bank, though it was not clear “at what scale or with what intentions”.

Russia withdrew forces from the western bank last year as part of a series of withdrawals that signified a shift in momentum in Kyiv’s favour.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern command, neither confirmed nor denied the report, which she told Ukrainian television foreshadowed “very powerful shelling” in districts around the west bank cities of Kherson and Beryslav.

“Reacting to such information, the enemy has significantly intensified its attacks on the opposite bank,” she said. Civilians had been injured and about 30 buildings destroyed, including a school, she said.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told a meeting chaired by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov yesterday that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is “causing massive suffering and devastation to the country and its people” and fueling “global economic dislocation triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Guterres also urged continued implementation of Ukraine Black Sea grain deal and Russia grain, fertilizer pact.

“Tensions between major powers are at an historic high. So are the risks of conflict, through misadventure or miscalculation,” Guterres also warned the UN Security Council meeting.

Lavrov chaired the meeting on multilateralism and the founding UN Charter because Russia holds the monthly rotating presidency of the 15-member body for April.