A Russian official reported a drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol early Monday.
The Russia-installed governor of the city, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said on social media that Russian forces destroyed a surface drone, while a second drone exploded.
Razvozhaev said there was no reported damage from the attack.
There was no immediate confirmation of the attack from Ukraine’s military. An October drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet was blamed on Ukraine.
Russia claimed to annex the Crimean Peninsula in a move not recognized by the international community.
Britain’s defense ministry said Monday that authorities in Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine are “almost certainly coercing the population to accept Russian Federation passports.”
In its daily assessment, the British ministry said residents of Kherson, another area Russia has claimed to annex, were threatened with deportation and seizure of their property if they do not accept a Russian passport by June 1.
“Russia is likely expediating the integration of the occupied areas of Ukraine into the bureaucracy of the Russian Federation to help paint the invasion as a success, especially in the run-up to the 2024 presidential elections,” the British defense ministry said.
Bakhmut fight
Russia and Ukraine traded claims Sunday over the embattled city of Bakhmut.
Moscow said its forces had taken two more neighborhoods in the western area of the nearly destroyed city but offered no details.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, sees taking Bakhmut as a pathway to other advances in eastern Ukraine.
However, Ukrainian Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi posted on the messaging app Telegram images of him and his troops at the frontline and said, “We hit the enemy, often unexpectedly for him, and continue to hold strategic lines.”
Neither The Associated Press nor Reuters could verify the battlefield reports.
Last month, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of more than 70,000, now has fewer than 4,000 civilians, including 38 children, remaining, Reuters reported.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said those left are eking out an existence in underground shelters under heavy shelling. – gb
