Russian defenses thwarted a waterborne drone attack on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which is home to Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet, top Russian officials claimed.
“Today ... the Kyiv regime attempted to attack the Black Sea Fleet’s base in the city of Sevastopol with three unmanned speedboats,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in its daily briefing for April 24.
“Anti-submarine warfare forces destroyed all of the enemy’s unmanned speedboats on the approach to Sevastopol Bay,” the ministry claimed, adding that the purported attack had failed to cause human or material losses.
Speaking soon afterward on Telegram, Sevastopol’s Moscow-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said that while the situation is under control, “all forces and services remain on alert.”
Kyiv, which seldom claims responsibility for attacks carried out inside Russian or Russia-held territory, has so far refrained from commenting on the Russian reports.
Russia effectively annexed Crimea in 2014 after holding a controversial referendum. In September 2022, Moscow unilaterally annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia following similar referendums.
Kyiv and its Western allies rejected the legitimacy of the annexations and demanded that Russia relinquish all seized territories, including Crimea.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with the stated aim of protecting Russian speakers in the Donbas region—comprised of Donetsk and Luhansk—and halting the eastward expansion of NATO.
Kyiv: Crimea in Crosshairs
Since Moscow launched its invasion early last year, Russia’s Crimea-based Black Sea Fleet has come under drone attack on several occasions.In October 2022, naval ships docked near Sevastopol were attacked by multiple air and waterborne drones, slightly damaging a Russian minesweeping vessel.
At the time, Moscow accused Ukraine of having staged the attack with the help of “British specialists”—a claim that drew spirited denials from London.
Late last month, sea traffic to and from Sevastopol was temporarily halted after Russian authorities again claimed to have thwarted a Ukrainian drone strike on the strategic port.
Meanwhile, speculation has mounted in recent weeks that an anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive might focus on the Russia-held Zaporizhzhia region in an effort to sever Moscow’s land corridor to Crimea.
Earlier this month, Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said Kyiv was prepared to “test and use” all available non-proscribed weapons to “liberate” Russian-held territory—including Crimea.
“Crimea is the territory of Ukraine,” Danilov said via Twitter on April 14. “We will test and use any weapons not prohibited by international laws that will help liberate our territories.”
One week earlier, an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that Kyiv might consider negotiating Crimea’s territorial status if Ukrainian forces succeeded in reaching the region’s borders in an upcoming counteroffensive.
“If we succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield, and when we [are] on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to ... discuss this issue,” Andrii Sybiha was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal recently stated that Kyiv’s planned counteroffensive could be postponed until later this summer.
Nevertheless, pro-Russian sources have appeared to confirm substantial Ukrainian military buildups near the frontline in Zaporizhzhia.
On April 24, Vladimir Rogov, a Moscow-appointed official in Zaporizhzhia, said that 12,000 fresh Ukrainian troops had been deployed near Hulyaipole, suggesting a counteroffensive was imminent.
Beijing Clarifies Crimea Remarks
Beijing, meanwhile, has hastened to clarify remarks made last week by a Chinese diplomat who said Crimea was “originally part of Russia.”Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, made the comment during an April 21 interview broadcast on French television.
In the interview, Lu noted that Crimea was transferred to Ukraine in 1954—when the latter, like Russia, was a Soviet republic—by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
“These ex-USSR countries don’t have actual status in international law because there is no international agreement formalizing their sovereign status,” the diplomat said.
Following a barrage of criticism from European capitals, especially those of the Baltic states, Beijing scrambled to clarify its position.
“China respects the sovereign status of the republics founded after the Soviet Union collapsed,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in an April 24 statement.
Ties between China and Russia have deepened considerably since the latter invaded Ukraine.
In March, Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid a rare state visit to Moscow for three days of close consultations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
But while Beijing has refrained from condemning Russia’s invasion, it doesn’t recognize Crimea—or the four other annexed regions—as Russian territory.
