Moscow: Only five days after drones damaged Russia's significant bridge over the Kerch Strait, a Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea on Saturday blew up an ammunition depot, causing evacuations on the peninsula annexed by Moscow and halting rail traffic.
Throughout Moscow's 17-month offensive against Ukraine, Kiev has targeted Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. However, attacks on Crimea have intensified and increased in recent weeks.
Despite some Western unease, Kiev has made it increasingly clear that it wants to retake the Black Sea peninsula as part of a counteroffensive launched to retake lands lost to Moscow.
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According to a speech Volodymyr Zelensky gave to the Aspen Security Forum on Friday, "the goal is to return Crimea," his office published a transcript of the speech on Saturday.
He claimed that Kiev views the Crimea bridge, which Russian President Vladimir Putin opened in 2018, as a "enemy object" that should be "neutralized." An ammunition depot had been destroyed by a "enemy" drone, according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Crimea's newly installed head of state installed by Moscow.
"An ammunition depot detonated as a result of an attack by an enemy drone on the Krasnogvardeisky district," Aksyonov wrote on Telegram, referring to a region that is located inland in the middle of Crimea.
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He ordered the evacuation of anyone living within five kilometers of the zone but did not specify exactly where it hit or how many people would be relocated.
Although Aksyonov stated there were no casualties and little damage, unreliable videos posted on social media showed smoke billowing into the air. Additionally, he stated that rail travel on the peninsula will come to an end: "To minimize risks, it was also decided to halt rail travel on Crimean railways."
Later, according to authorities, three trains—two traveling from Moscow to Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, and one traveling the other way—had been stopped. After a Tuesday Ukrainian attack damaged the bridge, killing two people, road traffic across the Crimea bridge—one of the few ways to leave Crimea given that flights have been canceled during the conflict—only resumed on Saturday.
Many of Kyiv's Western allies are uneasy about Ukraine's plans to retake the annexation, and they are worried that a larger conflict with Russia will result.
They have also signaled a sharp escalation in tensions in the Black Sea region, with Russia this week withdrawing from the historic grain agreement that ensured cargo ships' safe passage and declaring it would consider Ukrainian-bound ships as potential military targets.
Additionally, Ukraine has issued a warning that it might regard ships going to Russian ports as "carrying military cargo." Zelensky cautioned in his speech that Moscow "believes that the Black Sea is purely Russian."
He claimed that after Moscow pulled out of the agreement, Kyiv was "looking for a way out" to find a new grain corridor and that it was in contact with other Black Sea nations like Turkiye, Romania, and Bulgaria.
Kyiv has urged the UN and its neighbors to conduct joint patrols to ensure the safe passage of cargo.
The UN warned against an escalation as the Russian army conducted live fire drills in the Black Sea on Friday.
In the eastern villages of Urozhayniy and Priyutniy, Moscow's forces claimed to have repulsed three Ukrainian attacks on the battlefield on Saturday.
Two weeks after the US faced criticism for supplying the divisive weapons to Ukraine, Russia also claimed that Kiev had used infamous cluster munitions on the Russian border village of Zhuravlevka.
Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden came under harsh criticism from his own allies for sending the munitions, which could put civilians at risk in the long run. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, reported that "three cluster munitions from a multiple rocket launcher were fired (by the Ukrainian army) at the village of Zhuravlevka" on Friday.
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The small village is located in a region that has experienced almost daily cross-border attacks for months, right on the Ukrainian border.
It was the first time that Russia acknowledged the use of the weapons on its soil. Earlier this month, Biden stated that sending the weapons to Kyiv was a "very difficult decision" he had made. Putin claimed that Moscow had enough cluster bombs on hand to respond if Ukraine used the weapons.