The Kremlin-installed leader of occupied Crimea on Monday accused Ukraine of carrying out a fatal drone strike, even as Kyiv reported casualties from Russian bombardments in the country’s southeast.
Sergey Aksyonov said the Ukrainian military struck the Black Sea resort town of Foros, hitting the premises of a sanatorium and damaging a school.
“According to updated data, three people were killed and 16 were wounded as a result of (the) UAV attack,” Aksyonov wrote on Telegram.
He added that debris from the drone also sparked a blaze near Yalta, another city along the Crimean coast.
Russia’s defence ministry described the incident as a “terrorist attack” and initially said two people had died.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials reported that Russia carried out 46 air strikes across its territory by 10:00 pm (1900 GMT) on Sunday.
Kyiv said overnight bombardments on Zaporizhzhia left three people dead and two injured, one of them critically.
Russian forces had “dropped at least five” bombs on the southern city, according to Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional military administration.
Moscow seized and annexed Crimea in 2014, a move not recognised by Ukraine and its Western allies, though Russian authorities continue to demand international acceptance of the territory as their own.
Ukrainian forces regularly target the militarised peninsula, including the strategic bridge that links Crimea to Russia’s mainland.
Last month, US President Donald Trump met Russian leader Vladimir Putin for high-profile talks and later said Ukraine would not be able to reclaim Crimea under any peace arrangement.
Since then, momentum towards a ceasefire has stalled, despite Trump also holding separate discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
