Russia Blames Ukraine for Massive Drone Strike on Crimea

Russia Blames Ukraine for Massive Drone Strike on Crimea 

 Stefan J. Bos

 Moscow claims that Ukraine launched a massive drone strike on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula on Sunday, prompting Turkey to call for a ceasefire. Sunday’s strike came as Ukrainian authorities said the bodies of a mother and baby found in the rubble of an apartment block hit by a Russian attack in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odesa brought the death toll from a Russian drone attack to 10.

Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine launched 38 drones on the Crimea Peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. However, the ministry claimed its air defenses destroyed all of them.

It did not explain whether any damage or casualties resulted from the attack, with unconfirmed reports of powerful explosions near the port of Feodosia.

Separately, Russian authorities said there was “an emergency” in an apartment building in St Petersburg, with local news media reporting that a Ukrainian drone hit the residential building in Russia’s second-largest city.

Residents were evacuated, and there were no immediate reports of casualties. However, the reported Ukrainian attacks came after the Ukrainian city of Odesa was hit by a Russian strike.

Officials say the complex was hit by debris from an Iranian-made drone launched by Russia’s military.

Russian attacks, including artillery and mortar strikes causing death and injuries, were also reported elsewhere in Ukraine, including in the eastern province of Kharkiv and its regional capital with the same name.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stressed that the attacks underscored the need for the faster delivery of Western weapons.

But Turkey, which has brokered grain deals between Kyiv and Moscow in the past, urged a ceasefire in the more than two-year-old war sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.