Russia on Tuesday (July 18) took responsibility for the pre-dawn air attacks on Ukrainian port cities overnight, describing it as “a mass revenge strike” in response to the attack on the Crimean bridge that happened on Monday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said that it struck Odesa, where the Ukrainian navy has its headquarters, and Mykolaiv, near Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. It is through Black Sea port that Ukraine exports essential grains to the rest of the world until the deal with Russia fell off on Monday.
“The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a mass retaliatory strike overnight using precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats,” the ministry said in a statement.
“In addition, storage facilities holding around 70,000 tons of fuel used to supply the Ukrainian military’s equipment were destroyed” near the cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa, it said.
It said all the targets had been struck and destroyed, citing fires and detonations as evidence.
Russia targets key Ukraine Black Sea Port of Odessa
Ukraine downed 6 missiles and 25 drones
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian forces said they shot down scores of exploding drones and six cruise missiles.
“Caliber winged missiles and the vast majority of kamikaze drones were destroyed in the south – in Odesa and Mykolaiv regions. The rest of the impact BPLA was affected in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” Ukraine’s air force said in a statement.
Putin sought apt response
In Monday’s attack on the Kerch bridge—the bridge that connects occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland—a Russian couple was killed and their 14-year-old daughter wounded.
Though Kyiv has officially not claimed responsibility for the attack, Ukrainian media quoting Ukrainian security services reported that they used naval drones to attack the bridge, which had only recently returned to full operation after suffering severe damage in a similar attack last October.
Disclaimer: A number of claims and counterclaims are being made on the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the ground and online. While WION takes utmost care to accurately report this developing news story, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.
