Ukraine fired U.S.-supplied missiles at Crimea in a bid to knock out Moscow’s air-defense capabilities on the peninsula it occupies, according to Russian media reports. It is not clear if the missiles reached their targets, with Moscow sources saying they had been shot down.
The peninsula, which Vladimir Putin annexed in 2014, also hosts air bases, command and control centers and arms depots. They have been repeatedly hit in Ukrainian strikes during the invasion.
Russian military bloggers had posted on social media how ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles had been fired at the occupied peninsula from the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson overnight on Monday. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries for comment.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said this month that President Joe Biden had authorized sending a “significant number of ATACMS missiles” to Ukraine back in February, which were part of a $300 million aid package.
The U.S. had already provided medium-range versions of ATACMS missiles, and the powerful ballistic missiles can reach up to 190 miles, effectively putting into range any of Crimea’s dozens of military targets.
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Vladimir Rogov, chairman of We Are Together With Russia, a pro-Russian group that operates in the Moscow-occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia, said that the missiles had been fired at Crimea overnight but had been intercepted.
“Tonight, militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a missile attack on the Republic of Crimea,” Rogov wrote in a Telegram post.
“Russian air defense worked over Dzhankoy and Simferopol,” he said, referring to a key military hub and one of the peninsula’s main cities. “According to latest information, our defenders did an excellent job,” he added.
Rogov said that an alarm was sounded across the peninsula, and the bridge linking Crimea, with Russia’s Krasnodar territory—which has been subject to numerous attacks during the war—was temporarily suspended.
Russian military blogger Two Majors wrote on Telegram that between 11 and 15 missiles had been fired from Beryslav in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region with the aim of knocking out air-defense systems to hurt Moscow’s aviation capabilities.
The post also predicted that “strikes will continue” and that “preparations for a massive attack on the Crimean Bridge from the air and sea are not excluded.”
Meanwhile, the Telegram Channel “Prava Znat” (Right to Know) said that Ukraine had launched “combined strikes” that included drones.
The channel said that air defense had operated in the Yevpatoria, Gvardeyskoye and Krasnoperekopsk districts, shooting down “at least 10 air targets.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.