Social media users have shared video of missiles and explosions in Crimea amid reports that a Russian military headquarters in the occupied peninsula had been struck.
The Telegram channel Astra posted video in which a missile can be seen zooming across the sky and a voice says “a rocket has gone past.” Another clip shows smoke rising into the blue sky.
Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and Kyiv has repeatedly insisted that recapturing the peninsula was one of its war aims.
“Local residents have reported that the Main Command Post of the Black Sea Fleet had been damaged. There is no information about the dead,” Astra reported.
The X (formerly Twitter) account WhereisRussiaToday, which posts about Moscow’s military activity, shared a video of smoke rising from the horizon.
“A Russian military base north of Sevastopol has been hit with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles,” it said, referring to the British-supplied long-range weapons. A follow up post added that “our geolocation team have confirmed that the missile attack has destroyed a Russian Black Sea Fleet HQ building.”
However, the head of the Russian-controlled port city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, played down concerns and said that Russian air defenses had managed to down missiles and drones in Crimea.
Via social media X and Telegram
“Information on possible damage from fallen parts of downed missiles and casualties is being clarified. All operational services are working,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
(((Tendar))) which posts about the war wrote how there were “heavy explosions” in Crimea, “presumably somewhere near” Belbek military airport, near Sevastopol.
Russian claims that the drones “were intercepted and that only ‘grass’ is burning” were “not very likely” added the post, which said that the Kerch bridge between Crimea and Russia, which has been hit by attacks before, was closed.
Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) official Andriy Yusov confirmed there had been missile attacks on “locations of deployment of Russian equipment in occupied Crimea,” the Ukrainian Babel Telegram channel reported, according to a translation.
“More detailed information about the consequences of the strikes is promised to be made public later,” added the post. Newsweek has contacted the Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries for further comment.
Separately, Ukraine’s GUR said on Wednesday that “unknown saboteurs” had seriously damaged two planes and a helicopter at Chkalovsky Military Air Base in Moscow Oblast, 16 miles northeast of the capital city.
Ukrainian intelligence said that Russia is investigating how saboteurs managed to enter the “closely guarded” airfield and damage an Antonov AN-148 transport jet and an Ilyushin IL-20 surveillance aircraft. “The event caused quite a bit of hysteria in the higher military corridors,” the GUR Telegram post said.
In recent weeks, Russian airfields have been targeted and airplanes damaged in strikes believed to have been carried out by Ukraine.