Ukrainian drone strikes ammunition depot in Crimea

| July 23, 2023

A drone attack on an ammunition depot in Crimea has prompted authorities to clear a 5km radius and briefly suspend road traffic on the bridge linking the peninsula to Russia, the region’s governor says.

Ukraine said its army had destroyed an oil depot and Russian army warehouses in what it called the “temporarily occupied” district of Oktiabrske in central Crimea.

The attack caused an ammunition depot to explode, Russian-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov said and added there was no reported damage or casualties.

Footage shared by state media showed a thick cloud of grey smoke at the site.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, eight years before launching its full-scale invasion of the country.

The brief halting of traffic on the Crimean Bridge, about 180km to the east of the drone incident, came five days after explosions there killed two people and damaged a section of roadway – the second major attack on the bridge since the start of the war.

The 19km road and rail bridge is a vital logistics link for Russian forces, and is also heavily used by Russian tourists who flock to Crimea in summer.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that the bridge was a legitimate target because it was a military supply route for Russia.

“This is the route used to feed the war with ammunition and this is being done on a daily basis,” he said.

Russia is on high alert for incidents at the bridge, and an official Telegram channel tells people not to panic in the event of an alarm.

In a further sign of security concerns in Crimea, Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to Aksyonov, warned people not to post images of critical infrastructure on the internet.

He urged people who knew the authors of such posts to report them to the interior ministry or the FSB security service.

“Remember that a video posted on the web of military or other critical facilities is work for the enemy,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Russian war reporter was killed and three were wounded in Ukraine on Saturday in what the defence ministry said was a Ukrainian attack using cluster munitions.

In a separate incident, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle said one of its journalists, Yevgeny Shilko, had been wounded elsewhere in Ukraine in a Russian attack with cluster munitions that killed a Ukrainian soldier. 

It said his life was not in danger.

Cluster bombs are in the spotlight after Ukraine received supplies of them from the United States this month. 

Many countries ban them because they rain shrapnel over a wide area and can pose a risk to civilians. 

Some bomblets typically fail to explode immediately but can blow up years later.

Reuters could not independently verify the use of such weapons in either incident on Saturday. 

The dead Russian journalist was named as Rostislav Zhuravlev, a war correspondent for state news agency RIA. 

His three colleagues were taken from the battlefield after coming under fire in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the defence ministry said.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova denounced what she called “criminal terror” by Ukraine and said that the attack appeared deliberate.

“Those responsible for the brutal reprisal against a Russian journalist will inevitably suffer well-deserved punishment. The entire measure of responsibility will be shared by those who supplied cluster munitions to their Kyiv protégés,” she said.