Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack nor has it stated exactly how the attack took place
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Kyiv — A satellite image released Thursday shows the Russian Air Force in Crimea. It shows the devastation of the base and suggests that Kyiv may have acquired new long-range strike capabilities that could change the course of the war.
Photos from the independent satellite company Planet Labs showed his three near-identical craters where the building at Russia's Saki Air Force Base was apparently struck precisely. . A base on the southwestern coast of Crimea suffered extensive fire damage, with the charred shells of at least eight wrecked fighter planes clearly visible.
Russia denied damage to the aircraft and said the explosion at its base on Tuesday was accidental. It also does not say exactly how it was done.
blamed each other. On Thursday, just days after exchanging the same accusations that sparked international concern that the deployment of weapons there risks causing catastrophe.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced early Thursday morning that all fighting near the front and near Europe's largest plant owned by Russian forces and run by Ukrainian workers would be prohibited. In a fight that called on both sides to stop.
Ukraine's Energoatom said on Thursday that the complex was hit five times, including near where radioactive material was stored, but no one was injured and radiation levels remained normal. Stated.
A Russian-appointed local official said Ukraine had twice shelled the factory and disrupted shift changes, said Russia's TASS news agency.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield report.
Regarding the damage to Saki Air Base, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoljak said, "There are many possible scenarios."
"Officially, we are neither confirming nor denying anything... Bearing in mind that there were several blast epicenters at exactly the same time." he told Reuters in a message.
Western military experts said the scale of the damage and the apparent accuracy of the attack hinted at powerful new capabilities with potentially significant implications.
79} Russia, which occupied and annexed Crimea in 2014, uses the peninsula as a base for its Black Sea Fleet and as a major supply route for invading forces occupying southern Ukraine. the next few weeks."I'm not an Intel analyst, but I can't see well," Mark Hartling, a former commander of the US Army in Europe, wrote on Twitter, referring to the Russian bases.
"Me. That's very good," tweeted his fellow former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Haden.
The Institute for War Studies think-tank said that Ukrainian officials described the attack on Crimea as "the beginning of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south, with Ukrainian forces expecting heavy fighting in August and September." suggesting," he said. Consequences of the next stage of war.
How the attack took place remains a mystery. Some Ukrainian officials are said to have suggested it may have been sabotage by an intruder. However, nearly identical impact craters and simultaneous explosions appear to indicate that they were hit by a volley of weapons capable of evading Russian defenses. While within the range of the more powerful version Kyiv wanted, it far exceeds the range of the advanced rockets Western countries have so far admitted to sending to Ukraine, which also has anti-ship missiles. and can theoretically be used to attack land-based targets.
A new phase
Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksiy Khoromov said Russia had doubled its airstrikes on Ukrainian positions since last week, but the intensity of Russian airborne activity in the south after the destruction said to have decreased. At the Crimean base.
"As a result of the specified actions, the intensity of air use on the Southern Front has somewhat decreased," he said at a press conference.
Ukraine withdrew Russian troops from her capital Kyiv in March and from the outskirts of her second city Kharkov in May. Russia then occupied eastern territories in heavy fighting, killing thousands of soldiers on both sides in June.
Although the front has moved little since then, Kyiv has recaptured southern Kherson and the Zaporizhia region, the main part of the territory captured since the 24 February attack. He said that he is preparing a big impetus to do so. Moscow still holds aggression.
Russia has reinforced these areas, but their defenses rely on supply lines to stock troops accustomed to firing thousands of shells a day.
Kyiv hopes to tip the balance in its favor last month with the arrival of US rocket systems capable of hitting logistical targets behind front lines. So far, however, the West has withheld offers of long-range rockets capable of striking deep within Russia itself or attacking Moscow's many bases in annexed Crimea.
111} Russia says a "special military operation" is planned to protect Russian-speaking and separatists in the south and east. Ukraine and its Western allies say Moscow aims to seize as much territory as possible.Tens of thousands of people died and hundreds Tens of thousands fled and cities were destroyed.
On Thursday, Russia turned down Switzerland's offer to represent Moscow's diplomatic interests in Kyiv, saying Switzerland was no longer neutral because of its participation in sanctions against Russia.
Ukraine reported Russian artillery fire along the entire front, from around Kharkov in the northeast to eastern Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson and adjacent provinces along the banks of the wide Dnipro River.
Valentin Leznichenko, Governor of the Dnipro Region, was hit by his 120 Russian Grad rockets at Nikopol on the right bank of the Dnipro River, killing three and wounding seven. said.
Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of killing at least 13 of her people and injuring 10 others in rockets fired from near the Zaporizhia factory.
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