A Russian drone attack on Chernihiv damages warehouses, apartment buildings and vehicles. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Air Force headquarters likely targeted in an attack on Sevastopol. Russia could use the Belarusian territory to target the M-06 Kyiv-Chop highway with drones, ISW says.
Russian drone attack on Chernihiv damages warehouses, apartment buildings, vehicles
Russia launched an intense drone attack on Chernihiv overnight on Wednesday, damaging an industrial site, warehouses, country houses and vehicles. Around 15 explosions rocked the city, local authorities said.
Several industrial sites sustained damage in the attack, head of the city’s military administration Dmytro Bryzhynskyi said in a post to social media on Wednesday morning.
“Warehouses, an administrative building, equipment and vehicles were damaged. Five country houses also sustained damage. Windows were blown out in six multi-story apartment buildings. There were no casualties,” he said.
Head of the Chernihiv regional military administration, Vyacheslav Chaus said Russia targeted country houses in the Novobilouska and Kulykivska communities, as well as a wood processing plant, logistics company and critical infrastructure in Chernihiv.
Russia launched an attack on the village of Lukniv in the region’s Korop community on Wednesday morning. A female worker at a pig farm was killed and a tractor driver was heavily wounded. The strike ruined a local pig farm and a cattle farm, head of the Novhorod-Siverskyi district military administration, Oleksandr Seliverstov said. The authorities are working to identify the weapons used in the attack, he added.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Air Force headquarters likely targeted in attack on Sevastopol
Explosions rocked Simferopol and Sevastopol in Crimea overnight on Wednesday. One of the likely targets of the attack in Sevastopol was Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Air Force headquarters, Telegram channel Krymskyi Veter (Crimean Wind) said, as cited by Ukrainian media.
After the Black Sea Fleet’s main headquarters was destroyed, the site was used as a replacement, the Telegram channel said. A fire also started near the Sevastopol Bay, it added. Eyewitness reports said ambulances were heading to the center of Sevastopol.
The Belbek, Saky and Kacha air bases as well as military bases on Cape Fiolent came under a drone attack overnight on Wednesday, Krymskyi Veter said. Simferopol and Sevastopol were struck by missiles.
Eyewitness reports on social media said explosions were audible in Sevastopol, Simferopol and in the north of the peninsula on May 25.
Ukraine’s Security Service said it had hit infrastructure and air defenses at the Belbek air base in a joint operation with other branches of the Ukrainian military on May 17.
Russia could use Belarusian territory to target M-06 Kyiv-Chop highway with drones, ISW says
Russia could use Belarusian territory to target the M-06 highway that runs through western Ukrainian oblasts, including key supply routes from Poland to Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an update on Tuesday. The paragraphs below are quoted from the report.
Russia may instead use claimed instances of Ukrainian drones in Belarusian airspace to justify using Belarusian territory to launch “retaliatory” strikes against Ukraine.
Belarusian territory would allow Russia to conduct continuous drone strikes against Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) in western and northwestern Ukraine that Russian drones cannot currently easily strike with precision and heavy payloads.
Russian forces’ ability to use Belarusian territory to launch strikes may allow Russian Shahed-type drones and cheaper Molniya drones to target the M-06 highway that runs through western Ukrainian oblasts, including key supply routes from Poland to Ukraine and the railway connecting Poland and Ukraine.
Russian forces are already targeting western Ukrainian oblasts from Russian territory, but launching the drones from Belarus would allow Russian forces to operate remotely controlled Shahed and Molniya drones, increasing their precision and ability to strike moving targets along Ukrainian GLOCs.
[Belarusian Security Council Secretary Lieutenant General Alexander] Volfovich’s claims and recent Ukrainian warnings about Belarus suggest that Russia is setting informational conditions to further use Belarus for its own military purposes, including to strike strategically important GLOCs in the rear of western Ukraine.Volfovich claimed on May 26 that Belarusian forces have “recorded” 116 attempts by Ukrainian drones to cross the international border into Belarus over the past week. Volfovich also claimed that some Ukrainian drone border crossings were deliberate efforts to target Belarusian border infrastructure. Volfovich’s statements come over the backdrop of recent warnings from Ukrainian officials that Russia is pressuring Belarus to conduct operations against Ukraine or an unspecified NATO state.
Belarus accusing Ukraine of deliberate drone incursions is yet another attempt to shift the blame to Ukraine, spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service, Andriy Demchenko told Ukrinform news agency on Tuesday. In his statement, Volfovich “said many absurd words about the situation in Ukraine, including that their air defenses record daily regular border incursions by our attack drones,” Demchenko said.
“They counted 116 [such incidents] in the past week alone. [Had it been true], it would be hard to conceal such Ukrainian provocations for a long time. Also, their air defenses seem to record only Ukrainian drones and do not record outgoing targets entering Ukraine from Belarus,” he added.