RUSSIAN forces have repelled a ‘terrorist attack’ by Ukraine on the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol in Crimea, destroying several aerial and underwater drones, the country’s defence ministry declared, adding that its forces have also conducted air strikes against Ukrainian targets.
In a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app, the ministry said on Sunday that its forces successfully thwarted the attack by seven drones and two unmanned surface vehicles near Sevastopol.
‘This morning, an attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack by seven unmanned aerial vehicles and two unmanned semi-submersible boats on objects on the territory of the Crimean peninsula near the city of Sevastopol was thwarted,’ the ministry statement said.
According to the ministry, there were no casualties or damage.
They also said that two aerial drones were shot down over the Black Sea far off the coastline, while five were intercepted by Russia’s electronic warfare forces.
Two unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), known as underwater drones, were discovered in the northern part of the Black Sea, and destroyed by fire, the ministry said.
Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev also confirmed earlier on Telegram that the Russian Air Force and Navy units thwarted the UAV drone attacks on the Crimean port city.
‘The air defence forces and the fleet are repelling an attack by enemy UAVs on Sevastopol over the sea around Cape Khersones, Sevastopol Bay, and Balaklava,’ Razvozhayev said.
He later added that another UAV drone was shot down over Manganari cape.
Also, a Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson told Sputnik the Russian ‘Tsentr Group of Forces’ aviation units had ‘carried out more than 40 sorties, during which strikes were made on temporary deployment points, an ammunition depot, as well as eight areas of concentration of manpower and firepower of Ukrainian troops.’
The defence ministry spokesperson added that in the Serebryanskiy forest area, Ukrainian troops launched four attacks against Russian positions, but suffered significant losses.
‘A tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, and an armoured fighting vehicle were destroyed as a result of the air strike and fire attack from the mortar batteries of the “Tsentr” Group of Forces. The enemy suffered significant losses in manpower.’
The Russian troops in the Krasnolimanskaya direction inflicted damage on seven Ukrainian targets using ‘Solntsepek’ (Blazing Sun) thermobaric rocket launchers, the spokesperson added.
Earlier this month, Russian air defence units shot down several Ukrainian drones near Moscow.
Russia insists the United States was behind ‘a deliberate attempt’ to kill Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Russian Ministry of Defence stated that the terrorist attack by Kiev against Moscow and Moscow Region had been thwarted, with four enemy drones being destroyed by air defence systems and one enemy UAV being brought down by electronic countermeasures.
No injuries or damage were reported in that attack.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said the attack was successfully repelled as all UAVs were eliminated by Russian air defence units.
Russia has repeatedly warned against Kiev’s terrorist attacks on Russian targets, particularly its attack against the capital city Kremlin where Russian President Vladimir Putin is based, saying such attacks set a dangerous global precedent.
In May, three residential buildings in Moscow sustained light damage when another wave of Ukrainian UAVs were intercepted by the air defence units protecting the city.
- Ukraine is finding it difficult to join the NATO military alliance because the bloc leadership sees the former Soviet republic as being more useful to it “as a human shield than a partner nation.’
In an interview with the Press TV website, Denis Rogatyuk, an Australia-based journalist and political analyst, said the US-led military bloc is at the moment ‘able to fulfil all its objectives’ by keeping Ukraine away from the alliance, and ‘as close as they can to the frontline of its conflict with Russia.
‘As Article 5 of the NATO charter indicates, any conflict between a member state of NATO and another country would automatically trigger a military response by all members of the alliance,’ he said.
‘They understand that as a NATO member, Ukraine would immediately demand that all other members engage in a military and possibly nuclear, confrontation with Russia.’
At this year’s NATO summit in Lithuania last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had to leave empty-handed and with shattered hopes of securing membership of the alliance.
The communiqué released last Tuesday following the summit said the alliance ‘will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine when allies agree and conditions are met.’
In response, Zelensky fumed at the decision, saying there was ‘no readiness, neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the alliance.’
Rogatyuk told the Press TV website that the NATO leadership ‘has no desire to directly confront the second largest military armed force on the planet possessing one of the largest nuclear weapon stockpiles by allowing Ukraine to become a full member.’
He said that since the deposition of the democratically-elected government of Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine in 2014, and the subsequent conflict between the Ukrainian government and the pro-Russian People’s Republics of Donbas, Ukraine has been ‘engaged in a military campaign to regain its lost territory.
‘With most of the population of Donbas being of Russian origin, this is extremely unlikely to happen, regardless of the outcome of Russia’s special military operation,’ Rogatyuk stressed.
‘And while Ukraine is engaged in any kind of military conflict, any possibility of a full NATO membership will be out of the question.’
Other obstacles to Ukraine joining NATO, he added, include the ‘immense level of corruption’ within the Ukrainian military, as proved by last year’s scandal involving the Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov.
Rogatyuk further stated that in the event of Ukraine becoming a member state of NATO, the other powers such as the United States, United Kingdom and Germany ‘will use it to further provoke military and political conflict with Russia, as well as using it as a launch pad against any other state that it considers to be its rival, such as Iran.
‘Before the end of the Cold War, NATO gave strict assurances to both the USSR (and later Russia) that in exchange for their withdrawal of all military personnel from Eastern Europe, NATO would not expand a single inch eastward,’ he told the Press TV website.
‘This promise has been broken over 16 times in the past 30 years, and each time another state joined the ranks of NATO, the probability of a military confrontation with Russia grew.
‘Throughout the early 2000s, there were numerous incidents of NATO equipment being installed in nations such as Poland and the Czech Republic with the obvious intention of being used in a future conflict with Russia, provoking diplomatic crises each time.’
He hastened to add that Ukraine’s membership of NATO, if it happens, will have a ‘tremendous effect upon the international strategic relations between countries and blocs.
‘If Ukraine is allowed to join in the middle of the conflict with Russia, this would mean an instant World War 3 and the collapse of the international order as we know it,’ the Australian observer noted.
‘But if Ukraine is allowed to join as part of any post-conflict settlement, with or without the approval and consultation of the Russian government, we are likely to see the further strengthening of the relations between Russia and its strategic partners, especially China and Iran.’
Such a hostile move, he warned, would ‘further push Russia towards strengthening the military and economic cooperation through forums such as the Eurasian Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’ etc to ‘reduce any remaining economic leverage the Western governments may have on it, as well as to ensure its security against any possible attack from the West.’
