Ukraine hit by drone attacks as Russia accuses Kyiv of targeting Crimea

Ukraine said several people were killed in a town south of the capital Kyiv in overnight drone attacks by Russian forces, while Moscow accused its neighbour of using unmanned sea and air drones to target its navy based in the occupied peninsula of Crimea.

The latest Russian air strikes targeting energy infrastructure came hours after China’s leader Xi Jinping wrapped up a visit to Moscow. Russian president Vladimir Putin endorsed a Chinese peace plan that largely backs Moscow’s position and is considered a non-starter by Ukraine and its western allies.

“Every time someone tries to hear the word ‘peace’ in Moscow, another order is given there for such criminal strikes,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, adding the country was hit by 20 Iranian-made drones, missiles and shelling.

Zelenskyy said late on Tuesday that he had “no confirmation yet” if he will hold a phone call with Xi.

Ukraine’s air force said that “Russian invaders attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made ‘kamikaze’ drones of the Shahed-136/131 type”, adding that 16 of them were intercepted by air defences.

The emergency situations ministry posted photographs of a dormitory in Rzhyshchiv in the Kyiv region that it said was hit by a Russian drone. Officials said at least four people were confirmed to be killed in the strike.

Explosions were reported in other cities including Zhytomyr, west of the capital, and frontline towns in the country’s east and southern regions where Russian forces still occupy just under 20 per cent of national territory since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion 13 months ago. A monastery in the Black Sea port city of Odesa was also struck, officials said.

The southern industrial city of Zaporizhzhia was hit by repeated shelling on Wednesday. Zelenskyy posted a video of a strike on a residential building in the provincial capital.

Zaporizhzhia. Right now, residential areas where ordinary people and children live are being fired at.
This must not become “just another day” in 🇺🇦 or anywhere else in the world. The world needs greater unity and determination to defeat Russian terror faster and protect lives. pic.twitter.com/YnocW2yVaU

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 22, 2023

Mikhail Razvozhaev, Moscow’s top official in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, said in a post on Telegram that Russian forces “destroyed” three sea drones. “Anti-aircraft defences against an air target also worked. Warships were not damaged,” he added.

The attack on Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, came a day after Russian officials accused Ukraine of a drone attack on Dzhankoi, a railway hub town in the north of Crimea.

Referring to the reported incident, Ukraine’s military intelligence said on Tuesday that an “explosion” destroyed Kalibr cruise missiles that were being transported to the Black Sea fleet. But it stopped short of taking responsibility for the strike, sticking to Kyiv’s policy of not admitting to conducting strikes on Russian Federation territory as well as the occupied peninsula.

Neutralising Russia’s use of the Black Sea peninsula as a southern military base and staging area for attacks is key to Ukraine’s chances of liberating more south-eastern regions, according to military analysts.

Zelenskyy has pledged to liberate all Ukrainian land including Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 before fomenting a proxy separatist war in the eastern Donbas region, and has urged allies to step up arms supplies to bolster another big counter-offensive.

“The success of Ukrainian forces . . . brings peace closer. Full compliance with the sanctions regime against Russia really restores the force of the UN Charter. Global unity can restore global stability,” Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.