Russia says it destroys 22 Ukrainian drones over Black Sea

Russia’s air defences detected and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight, the country’s defence ministry said on Sunday in a daily briefing. Reuters was not able to independently verify Russia’s claim. A Russian-installed official said earlier that Ukraine had launched drones at Crimea overnight, without providing details. Separately, the defence ministry said its forces had gained more ground in the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, claiming two “blocks” in the northwestern and western parts of the city. Meanwhile, Russia kept up its missile attacks on Ukraine on Sunday ahead of a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, targeting an industrial site in the southern Mykolaiv region, authorities said. Mykolaiv governor Vitaliy Kim said in a social media post that a building and territory belonging to an unspecified enterprise were damaged overnight after Russian long-range bombers targeted his region with five Kh-22 cruise missiles. Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told local television on Sunday morning that a total of six of those missiles had been fired at Ukraine overnight but that none had hit their targets. In the eastern Kharkiv region, at least five people were injured after an S-300 missile struck a car park in the city of Balakliya, said governor Oleh Synyehubov. Russian forces have stepped up their long-range missile strikes on civilian and infrastructure targets in recent days. Air raid alerts blared for several hours overnight into early Sunday over roughly two-thirds of Ukraine, extending from Kyiv and regions to the west of the capital through to the entire east and south. Officials in the capital Kyiv and the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region also reported shooting down a reconnaissance and attack drone in the early hours, respectively. The overnight strikes coincided with Ukrainian and Russian media reports of multiple explosions across Russian-occupied Crimea.