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Smoke billows from an ammunition dump in Crimea on Tuesday
Photo:
IMAGO/Sergei Malgavko / IMAGO/ITAR-TASS
The Russian Air Force is apparently trying to bring fighter jets and helicopters to safety in Crimea.
This was announced by the Ukrainian military intelligence service on Facebook on Wednesday.
Some of the aircraft would be transferred to the interior of the peninsula annexed in 2014, and some would be withdrawn to the Russian mainland.
According to the report, at least 24 aircraft and 14 helicopters had been relocated.
The information from Kyiv could not be verified.
On August 9, explosions shook the Russian air base at Saki on the west coast of Crimea.
Satellite images later showed that at least seven fighter jets had been destroyed.
Heavy detonations were then observed in an ammunition depot near Dzhankoy and a smaller explosion at the Gvardeyskoye air base near Simferopol on Tuesday.
Ukraine has officially taken no responsibility.
However, the damage suggests targeted actions against the military installations.
Ukraine prepares for national holiday airstrikes – and threatens Russia
Ukraine, meanwhile, is bracing for Russian rocket attacks on the capital, Kyiv, on August 24, its Independence Day.
That said presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, who often comments on military issues.
However, this will not change anything in the military situation, he said after reports in Kyiv.
Rather, it would be "a purely emotional gesture to kill more civilians and ruin our holiday."
But Ukraine also has the means to spoil the Russians' day, said Arestovych - and recalled the series of explosions at Russian military installations in Crimea.
"It will be much worse for them there than for us here if they are attacked," he threatened.
The former Soviet republic of Ukraine commemorates the declaration of its independence on August 24, 1991. This year, the holiday coincides with half a year of defensive fighting against the Russian invasion: Russia began attacking the neighboring country on February 24.
aar/dpa