Ukraine claims to have struck Russian air defense system in Crimea

The Ukrainian army announced that it “successfully struck” a Russian air defense system in the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight from Sunday to Monday.

The Ukrainian Army’s Strategic Communications Center said on the Telegram app, without further details: “The Ukrainian Armed Forces succeeded in striking a strategic location of the air defense system on the western coast of the Crimean Peninsula.”

The Russian authorities did not comment on this issue, but the Rebar channel on Telegram, which is close to the Russian army and followed by more than 1.2 million people, reported a “joint attack” by Kiev against the Ukrainian peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.

According to this channel, Ukrainian forces fired two American ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles at the vicinity of the village of Olenivka, located on Cape Tarkhankut (west of the Crimean Peninsula). Rebar confirmed that Russian attempts to shoot down the missiles failed, but the strike did not cause serious damage.

Shortly after, three Ukrainian Navy drones were spotted off the coast of Sevastopol, the port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, the same channel reported while confirming the destruction of two of them.

Ukraine intensified its attacks against the territory occupied by Moscow forces and against Russian territory against the backdrop of a slow counterattack launched by Kiev at the beginning of June.

Crimea is regularly targeted because it is the rear base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and the main supply route for Russian forces occupying southern and eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine announced in mid-October that it had successfully used ATACMS missiles with a range of up to 165 kilometers for the first time, which the United States had delivered to it in complete secrecy.

Kiev has been demanding these weapons for months so that it can destroy Russian rear lines and supplies from afar in southern and eastern Ukraine, thus giving a better chance for the success of the ongoing counterattack to liberate the occupied territories.