According to Ukraine, a shipment of Russian Kalibr cruise missiles en route to the Black Sea Fleet was destroyed in Crimea.
Ukraine has reported the destruction of “several” Russian cruise missiles as they were being transported by rail to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.
Ukraine’s military authority said late Monday that several Kalibr cruise missiles were destroyed by a blast, without specifically saying Ukraine was responsible for the blast or exactly how the shipment of powerful missiles was destroyed.
“An explosion in the town of Dzhankoi in northern temporarily occupied Crimea destroyed Russian Kalibr-KN cruise missiles as they were being transported by rail,” Ukrainian intelligence said in social media posts. The missiles were intended for submarine launch by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the agency said.
Ihor Ivin, the Russian-appointed head of the Dzhankoi administration, was quoted as saying the city had been attacked by drones and a 33-year-old man was shrapnel-wounded by a downed drone.
He was hospitalized and was expected to survive. A house, a school and a grocery store caught fire, and the power grid was also damaged in the attack, Russia’s state news agency TASS Ivin was quoted as saying to local TV channel Krym-24.
Russia-appointed Crimea governor Sergei Aksenov said on social media that anti-aircraft weapons were fired near Dzhankoi, where Ukrainian intelligence said the cruise missiles had been destroyed. Aksenov said falling debris injured one person and damaged a home and a shop.
Russian officials did not confirm missiles were destroyed in the attack. Ukrainian media reported that before the explosion in Dzhankoi, the sound of drone engines could be heard.
Kalibr cruise missiles have been widely used in Russian attacks on Ukraine. In July 2022, a Kalibr cruise missile launched from a submarine killed 23 civilians, including three children, in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia. Russia claimed the missile was aimed at a meeting of Ukrainian air force commanders and representatives of Western arms suppliers.
The sounds of the drones hitting Dzhankoy in occupied Crimea are similar to those of the Iranian Shahed-136/131 drones.
Some sources speculate that Shaheds were diverted to targets in Crimea. It is more likely that Ukraine has developed drones with similar engines.
📹about @RoksolanaKrim pic.twitter.com/djmDckWpKz— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) March 20, 2023
While regular reports of attacks on Russian military bases, assassinations and other targets in Crimea appeared throughout the war, Ukraine has rarely, if ever, explicitly claimed responsibility for such attacks, but welcomes their outcome.
The reported destruction of a shipment of cruise missiles in Crimea follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the peninsula on Saturday as part of an unannounced tour to mark the ninth anniversary of the region’s annexation from Ukraine.
Putin made the trip the day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it had issued an arrest warrant on suspicion of war crimes over the illegal deportation of hundreds of children from Ukraine. The court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s child rights commissioner. Russia claims deporting children from Ukraine is a humanitarian act.
The ICC arrest warrants were immediately dismissed as outrageous by Moscow and hailed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough in seeking justice for victims of Russian war crimes.
In a prequel to last year’s Russian invasion of Ukraine, Moscow seized Crimea in 2014 and then annexed the peninsula in a move many countries condemned as illegal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pledged to retake all of the Ukrainian lands that Russia now occupies, including Crimea.