June 4 (Portal) – Russia said on Sunday it had intercepted nine drones over the Crimean peninsula and one over the small town of Sudzha in the southern Kursk region. There have been almost daily attacks within the country or in areas controlled by Moscow.
Five drones were shot down and four were blocked and failed to reach their targets in Crimea’s Jankoy, a Russian-deployed official said in the peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
A drone launched by Ukraine was shot down over Sudzha later in the day, the governor of Ukraine’s Kursk region said on news app Telegram.
Portal could not independently verify the reports.
The attacks were followed by several attacks on Russia’s border region of Belgorod and oil infrastructure in the country, as well as a drone strike on affluent districts of Moscow earlier in the week.
Kiev has denied an attack on Moscow, and Ukraine almost never publicly takes responsibility for attacks elsewhere in Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
There were no casualties in Sunday’s drone strikes, officials said. Windows have been broken in several houses in Dzhankoi, Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-backed Crimean administration chief, told news app Telegram.
He added that an unexploded drone was found on the premises of an apartment building, forcing the temporary evacuation of about 50 people in the area.
Russia has a military airfield near Dzhankoy. Ukrainian officials have long said the city and surrounding areas have been turned into Moscow’s largest military base in Crimea.
Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Adaptation by William Mallard, Nick Macfie and Diane Craft
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