Live Ukraine war: Kiev denies targeting Russian navy after drone strike in Crimea

The city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine has been the target of massive Russian bombings, possibly the “strongest” since the war began in February, which left two people dead, officials said Sunday.

“Mykolive came under heavy shelling today. Perhaps the strongest so far,” wrote city mayor Oleksandr Senkevich in a telegram, noting that “powerful explosions” were heard twice overnight from Saturday to Sunday.

The governor of the region, Vitaly Kim, announced that two people had died in the strikes, a pair of civilians. Other strikes hit Kharkiv (east) and Sumy (northeast) regions.

President Vladimir Putin announced Sunday that the Russian Navy will buy a new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile that “knows no obstacles” “in the coming months.” The Russian Navy is “capable of a lightning strike against those who decide to undermine our sovereignty and independence,” he assured during a naval parade in St. Petersburg (Northwest). Starting in the coming months”.

Ukraine on Sunday denied a drone strike on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, which according to Moscow injured six people, calling the Russian accusations a “deliberate provocation”.

Odesa regional government spokesman Sergey Brachuk said in a statement that Russian accusations of the so-called “Ukrainian attack on Russian naval headquarters in Sevastopol” were “deliberate provocation.” Video on Telegram. “The liberation of Ukrainian-occupied Crimea will take place in another, more efficient way,” he added.

In Ayia Napa, a popular seaside resort in Cyprus, the party has resumed, but without the influx of Russian tourists, the second-largest group of visitors after the British, the void is hard to fill. “This year, we expected 800,000 Russian tourists” (in 2019), the head of the Cyprus Hotel Association, Harris Loisits, told AFP. According to official statistics, in the first six months of the year, only 17,000 Russian tourists came to the Mediterranean island, which is now almost impossible to reach.

The Russian market was “destroyed overnight” following EU sanctions after Moscow invaded Ukraine, says Christos Angelidis, head of the Pansibirean Association of Hotel Managers.

Nicosia and Moscow have close political and cultural ties, but when Russia sent troops to Ukraine, the Cypriot parliament unanimously passed a resolution condemning the invasion.

All ceremonies related to the Day of the Russian Navy have been canceled “for security reasons,” said Sevastopol Governor M. Rasvozhayev announced, after the drone strike. Extensive celebrations are planned across Russia for the holiday, including a naval parade in St Petersburg (northwest), to be overseen by President Vladimir Putin.

A drone strike targeted the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol on Sunday, injuring five people, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of the city on the annexed peninsula of Crimea. “This morning, Ukrainian nationalists decided to spoil for us the Russian Navy Day” celebrated this Sunday in Russia, Mr. Rasvozhaev wrote in a telegram. He noted that a drone had landed in the Navy’s staff yard, injuring five of the staff’s staff.

In a video address on Saturday evening, the Ukrainian president called on people to leave the Donetsk region in the east of the city, which has been bombarded by Russian forces. “The government has decided to forcefully evacuate the Donetsk region (…) Please leave,” he added. “At this stage of the war, Russia’s main weapon is terrorism. »

“France expresses its horror at reports of massacres and acts of torture against Ukrainian prisoners of war in the Olenivka (Ukrainian city located in the Donbass, editor’s note) detention center under the protection of the Russian Federation”, Quai d’Orsay announced on Saturday In a press release. It will be the prison where the fighters of the Azov Brigade, the defenders of Mariupol, are held.