Russia announces repelling an attack with ten Ukrainian missiles targeting Crimea

Russia confirmed on Saturday evening that it had repelled an attack with ten Ukrainian missiles targeting the city of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014, and their fragments caused the injury of a child, according to the city’s governor.

“Our soldiers repelled a massive attack on Sevastopol; According to preliminary information, more than ten missiles were shot down,” Mikhail Razvogayev wrote on Telegram.

He added that a child and a woman were injured as a result of fragments of the dropped missiles, which also caused damage to a number of residential buildings.

The Ukrainian military regularly targets Crimea using missiles and drones due to its importance to the logistics of Russian forces occupying southern Ukraine.

In early January, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, confirmed that Ukrainian attacks on Crimea would intensify.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine, especially Belgorod, are also subject to regular bombing and incursions by fighters from Ukraine.

In this regard, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday evening that it had shot down 19 Ukrainian Vampire missiles over the Belgorod region.

For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is trying to hold Ukraine responsible for the terrorist attack in Moscow.

This came in a speech addressed by Zelensky to the Ukrainian people and published on his account on a social networking site.

He stressed that Putin and Russian officials are trying to hold Ukraine responsible for the attack, a step similar to previous attempts, saying “The Russians always use the same methods”.

Zelensky accused the Russian army of carrying out “terrorist acts” against Ukraine and the population living in this country.

He added, “They’ve pushed hundreds of thousands of terrorists into Ukrainian territory, and they are fighting against us and don’t care about what is happening in their country”.

The Ukrainian president also accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of remaining silent for a day and thinking about how to pin the attack on Ukraine, instead of paying attention to Russian citizens and addressing them.

He believed that Putin would use this situation to his advantage as long as the Russian people didn’t hold Putin responsible for the dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Earlier Saturday, the Russian Investigative Committee announced, in a statement, that the death toll from the terrorist attack in Moscow had risen to 143 people, following the discovery of more bodies.

Hours ago, the Russian Federal Security Service reported, in a statement, the arrest of 11 people, including 4 terrorists directly involved in the attack, and that efforts are continuing to identify their accomplices.

The statement stated that the attack was carefully planned, and that “the attackers were trying to escape towards the Ukrainian border”.

He explained, “After the terrorist attack, the criminals planned to cross the Russian-Ukrainian border, and they had contacts on the Ukrainian side”.

Scenes circulating on social media showed that the attackers opened fire randomly in the hall, and a fire also broke out in the roof of the building, and the roof collapsed after a while.