Ukraine claimed on Tuesday March 5 that it had destroyed a Russian warship near the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia, a new snub inflicted on Moscow in this strategic area of the Black Sea.
To discover
Follow information on the war in Ukraine with the Figaro application
kyiv also says it has struck an oil depot in the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine.
In recent weeks, similar attacks against oil sites have followed one another in Russia.
Blast
On the Black Sea, the Ukrainian navy claimed that a
“special unit”
had during the night from Monday to Tuesday
“destroyed the most modern Russian patrol boat, the Sergei Kotov”
,
“hit by Magura V5 maritime drones”
.
The strike was carried out
“in Ukrainian territorial waters, near the Kerch Strait
,” she said, adding that the ship had already been
“severely damaged”
in September by the Ukrainians.
President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed a new attack on a Russian ship which showed
“what Ukraine is capable of”
.
“There is no safe haven for Russian terrorists in the Black Sea and there never will be. And there will be no safe space for them in the sky either
,” he insisted.
The operation was carried out by Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) with the cooperation of the navy.
The GUR released a black and white video on Tuesday depicting the alleged strike.
In the images, we can see a naval drone approaching the Sergei Kotov - 94 meters long - then an explosion with a large flame, smoke and debris projected above this building.
The Russian Defense Ministry has not yet commented on the attack, but Russian military bloggers close to the army have confirmed it, with some emphasizing the Russian navy's inability to defend itself.
“Occupation symbol”
In two years of war, Kiev's forces managed to retreat the powerful Russian fleet in the Black Sea using missiles and marine drones, allowing the reopening of a maritime corridor to export Ukrainian grain by making ignored bombing threats.
The Ukrainian military claimed in early February that around a third of Russian warships had been
“put out of action”
in this area.
“The Russian Black Sea Fleet is a symbol of occupation. It cannot be in Ukrainian Crimea
,” commented the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration Andriï Iermak on Tuesday, after the announcement of the destruction of the Russian patrol boat.
Crimea, a peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, is regularly targeted because it is important for the logistics of Russian troops during their operations on the front.
Furthermore, in the Russian region of Kursk,
“the Gluchkovo railway station was targeted by strikes coming from Ukraine
,” Roman Starovoit, the regional governor, wrote on Telegram, specifying that the attack
“did not number of injured”
.
No US troops “on the ground” in Ukraine
On the front, the Ukrainian army still suffers from a lack of weapons and ammunition to repel Russian assaults, particularly near Avdiïvka, a town in eastern Ukraine that it lost in mid-February. after four months of deadly fighting.
On the subject of aid to kyiv, French President Emmanuel Macron was in Prague on Tuesday to support a Czech initiative to buy non-EU munitions and supply them to the Ukrainians.
He called on Ukraine's allies to
"not be cowardly"
in the face of a Russia
that had "become unstoppable"
,
"taking responsibility"
for having urged a
"strategic surge"
when he raised the possibility of sending soldiers Westerners on Ukrainian territory, while affirming that they do not want an
“escalation”
with Moscow.
Asked about Mr. Macron's comments, the White House insisted that there would be
“no American troops engaged on the ground in Ukraine”
.
"And you know what ?
This is not what President Zelensky is asking for.
It requires tools and capabilities.
"He never asked for foreign troops to fight for his country
," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
In Brussels, the European Commission for its part proposed on Tuesday to finance part of the arms purchases decided jointly by the 27, in order to strengthen defense capabilities on the continent in the face of the Russian threat and to depend less on the United States. United.
Finally, in Germany, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius attributed
recent leaks in the German army on arms deliveries to Kiev to a serious
“individual error” , one of the officers having participated in the meeting via a
“unauthorized connection”
.