Russia, Ukraine trade drone attacks as Kyiv says it took out key missile-defense system
Russia and Ukraine traded drone attacks early Wednesday, officials said, with Kyiv apparently targeting Moscow again and the Kremlin’s forces launching another bombardment of Ukrainian grain storage depots in what have recently become signature tactics in the almost 18-month war.
Later Wednesday, the Ukrainian intelligence agency claimed to have destroyed a key Russian S-400 surface-to-air missile-defense system in occupied Crimea. If confirmed, it would be another embarrassing blow for Russia as Ukraine increasingly targets Moscow’s assets far behind the front line in southern and eastern Ukraine.
The agency, known by the acronym GUR, claimed on its official Telegram channel that Russia has a “limited number” of the sophisticated systems and that the loss “is a painful blow.” Moscow officials made no immediate comment.
The long-range S-400 missiles are capable of striking enemy aircraft and are regarded as one of the best such systems available. They have a range of 250 miles and can simultaneously engage multiple targets.
Earlier, a three-hour nighttime Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region overnight Tuesday caused a blaze at grain facilities, Odesa Regional Military Administration Head Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The attack destroyed 14,300 tons of grain, bringing the month’s total grain losses to around 300,000 tons, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a Facebook post.
In a week, Russia has fired dozens of missiles and drones at the Odesa region of Ukraine, hitting the historic city center that had been largely spared in the war.
Russia zeroed in on Odesa last month, crippling significant parts of the port city’s grain facilities, days after President Vladimir Putin broke off Russia’s participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative. That wartime deal enabled Ukraine’s exports to reach many countries facing the threat of hunger.
Under a year of that deal, Ukraine shipped 36.2 million tons of grain, most of it from the Odesa region.
Russian officials, meanwhile, claimed to have downed Ukrainian drones in Moscow and the surrounding region early Wednesday, the defense ministry and the mayor said. No casualties were reported in the drone attack, which has become almost a daily occurrence in the Russian capital.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said one drone smashed into a building under construction in Moscow City, a prestigious business complex hit by drones twice before. Several windows were broken in two buildings nearby, and emergency services responded to the scene.
Russian general linked to the leader of the mutinous Wagner mercenary group has been dismissed from his job as air force chief, Russian media say.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said the drone had been electronically jammed.
It blamed the attack on Ukraine and said two other drones were shot down by air-defense systems in the Mozhaisk and Khimki areas of the Moscow region. Kyiv officials, as usual, neither confirmed nor denied that Ukraine was behind the drone attacks.
Moscow airports briefly closed but have now reopened, according to Russian state media.
Neither side’s claims could be independently verified.
Four children were among those wounded in the blasts, which severely damaged 25 landmarks across Odesa, including the Transfiguration Cathedral.
Ukraine has since early this year sought to take the war into the heart of Russia. It has increasingly targeted Moscow’s military assets behind the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine and at the same time has launched drones against Moscow.
Kyiv is also trying to keep up the pressure on the Kremlin along multiple fronts, pursuing a counteroffensive at various points along the 900-mile front line, as well as diplomatically by obtaining pledges of more weaponry from its Western allies, including F-16 warplanes.
Meanwhile, a Russian drone attack on the city of Romny in northeastern Ukraine struck a local school, killing the principal, his deputy, a secretary and the school librarian, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Also, three people were killed in the Belgorod region of Russia on the Ukrainian border after repeated shelling of a sanatorium, according to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Officials in Washington and Europe say the U.S. has given the green light for Denmark and the Netherlands to send F-16 warplanes to Ukraine.
Gladkov said that the sanatorium in the village of Lavy, about 25 miles from the border, was shelled and that “the enemy dropped two grenades from a drone while people were on the street.”
The Belgorod region has witnessed sporadic fighting and shelling during the war, including a border incursion in May that prompted the Kremlin to introduce tighter security.
For the record:
7:42 a.m. Aug. 23, 2023A previous version of this article misstated which Finnish leader visited Ukraine on Wednesday. It was the prime minister, not the president.
A handful of foreign dignitaries, including the prime minister of Finland and the presidents of Portugal and Lithuania, visited Ukraine on Wednesday.
Their presence coincided with the Day of the National Flag of Ukraine, which precedes Ukrainian Independence Day on Thursday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, along with Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander in Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi and other top officials, attended the unfurling in Kyiv of a giant Ukrainian flag with numerous signatures of soldiers, volunteers, doctors and rescuers.
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