Drones hit historic museum in Russia-annexed Crimea
Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles hit a historical museum in Sevastopol, Crimea, annexed by Russia.
The museum commemorates the Crimean War of 1853-1856 between the Russian Empire and the coalition that included the Ottoman Empire. Russia was defeated in this war.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, said on Telegram that the roof of the museum was hit. No information was given about whether there was any damage or loss of life.
“The enemy will pay the price for this disrespect!” Razvozhayev said in a statement early Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Crimea, authorities have reduced train schedules to night hours, while a drone attack this week injured a train driver and killed his assistant, the peninsula’s Russian-appointed governor, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram.
Crimea’s Black Sea peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, is facing fuel shortages following recent Ukrainian drone attacks as the holiday season begins.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy offered a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but he refused. Following the train incident, the Kremlin said it undermined Ukraine’s efforts to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Elsewhere, the city of Novokuibyshevsk in Russia’s Samara region, a major oil hub on the Volga river that is home to several refineries operated by state-controlled oil giant Rosneft, repelled drone attacks, the regional governor said.
According to local media reports, authorities appealed to residents of the city of one million to take shelter as public transport was suspended due to air raid warnings.
Ukraine’s ongoing attacks on Russian energy infrastructure have forced Moscow to cut oil production, the world’s third largest.
In Russia’s southern Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, debris falling from a drone caused a fire in a fuel tank in a civilian area, the regional governor wrote on Telegram.
Also on Telegram, the mayor of Moscow said that the city had repelled drone attacks.
Russia’s remote oil-producing regions of Khanty-Mansiysk, Perm and Tyumen, as well as the industrial regions of Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk in the Ural mountains, thousands of kilometers from Ukraine, issued air raid warnings in rare moves, according to social media posts by local officials.
