Russia-Ukraine war latest: Putin’s warship damaged in overnight drone attacks near Kerch Bridge

A Russian warship was seriously damaged in a Ukrainian naval drone attack on Russia’s navy base at Novorossiysk overnight, the first time the Ukrainian navy has projected its military might so far from the country’s shores.

Russia-installed officials in the Crimea peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, said the latest explosions had nothing to do with the bridge, which has come under serious attacks twice in the 17-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine, which rarely comments on attacks on Russian targets, made no official statement on the incident.

In a span of a decade, Alexei Navalny has gone from the Kremlin’s biggest foe to Russia’s most prominent political prisoner.

Already serving two convictions that have landed him in prison for at least nine years, he stands a new trial that could keep him behind bars for two more decades.

The verdict in the trial is due to be announced Friday in a makeshift courtroom in the Penal Colony No. 6, where Navalny is being held and where the trial took place behind closed doors, in the town of Melekhovo, about 230 kilometres (over 140 miles) east of Moscow.

Ukraine has accused Russia of planning a “false flag” attack on an oil refinery in Belarus in an attempt to draw Minsk into the war, as tensions rise on Nato’s eastern border.

While Alexander Lukashenko has so far avoided being dragged into the full-scale conflict by his close ally Vladimir Putin, the Belarusian president allowed Moscow’s troops to use Belarus as a staging ground for their invasion last February, and has agreed to host Russian nuclear weapons.

Concerns have been brewing in the West since Mr Lukashenko agreed to take in Wagner mercenaries exiled from Russia after their shortlived mutiny, with Nato member Poland warning this week of the threat posed by the “extremely dangerous” fighters, as it scrambled troops to their shared border.

Andy Gregory reports here:

The engine room of SIG tanker deployed by Russia near Crimea was damaged as a result of a sea drone attack, Russia’s Federal Agency for Marine and River Transport confirmed today.

“The SIG tanker… received a hole in the engine room near the waterline on the starboard side, preliminarily as a result of a sea drone attack,” the agency said in a statement.

No immediate casualties have been reported.

Britain will back Ukraine “every way we can” until the war is over, Ben Wallace said.

His comments follow a heartfelt call from Olena Zelenska, in an exclusive interview with Independent TV, to other nations, in which she said: “Please don’t get fatigued, because we as Ukrainians have no right to get tired.”

The Royal Air Force has delivered a powerful message of unity to Russian president Vladimir Putin with the interception of dozens of Russian aircraft during its leadership of a Nato air policing mission in Estonia, Ben Wallace has said.

The defence secretary praised the RAF’s success, emphasising the unwavering commitment of the UK and its allies in safeguarding European airspace and standing against any potential threat to their borders.

His comments come as RAF personnel have returned to the UK after leading the air policing mission in Eastern Europe for four months, during which pilots intercepted 50 Russian aircraft and flew for a combined total of more than 500 hours.

Ukrainian forces are persistently working to retake land near the shattered eastern city of Bakhmut and fighting off Russian forces who are pouring in additional troops in a bid to stop Kyiv’s advances, the war-hit nation’s military officials said.

“The Russians are throwing huge numbers of forces into the Bakhmut area,” Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar told national television. “It has been important for us to establish ourselves on dominant heights in these areas.”

She added that Ukrainian forces were advancing “slowly but confidently” south of Bakhmut while securing control of positions north of the city.

“An extremely fierce battle is going on there.”

In Moscow, several accounts said Russian troops have repelled several Ukrainian attempts to advance in the east and inflicted defeat on Ukrainian troops near Bakhmut, consistent with Kyiv’s statements about heavy fighting.

“The enemy is desperately trying to stop our offensive,” Ms Maliar said.

Ukrainian forces, she said, were also working to contain intensified Russian attacks on areas farther north in Donestsk region, around Kupiansk and Lyman.

Traffic was halted for a time on the bridge, the third such stop in the past 24 hours, but later resumed, officials said.

“Once again, there was no direct attack on the Crimea bridge and there was no explosion in the immediate vicinity,” Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

At least three explosions had been reported in the area, said Ukraine’s UNIAN news agency.

Ukrainian news reports and pro-Russian officials in occupied parts of Ukraine said Ukrainian drones had attacked a tanker vessel in the Kerch Strait operating under a Russian flag and identified as the SIG.

One Russian-appointed official in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, Vladimir Rogov, posted an audio clip in which the vessel had requested a tow from tugboats.

Mr Rogov posted pictures of what he described as shattered fixtures and equipment inside the vessels.

The ship, he said, had been supplying oil to Russian troops in Syria.

The bridge, completed by Russia in 2018, four years after Moscow annexed the peninsula from Ukraine, has been subjected to two major attacks in the 17-month-old Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the most recent one occurring last month.

Ukraine has never claimed responsibility for the attacks on Russia or Russia-held territories but alluded to being accountable for them in indirect references.*

Explosions rocked the area near Kerch bridge, linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland, in the early hours today, Russian-appointed officials said.

The Moscow-backed officials claimed that the blasts were linked to a Ukrainian drone attack on a Russian tanker.

Russia’s sea rescue service in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk said tugboats were dispatched to help the tanker, which was damaged and unable to operate on its own.

“We can say that the tanker is damaged in the (Kerch) strait, only on the south side,” the rescue centre said, reported Russia’s TASS news agency.

“They will deal with it now on whether to take it under tow or not. It is standing at anchor for the moment. The machine room suffered some damage, not too badly.”

Ukraine, which rarely comments on attacks on Russian targets, made no official statement on the incident.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has become the second 2024 Republican presidential hopeful to visit Ukraine, meeting Friday with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, touring ravaged villages and saying what he saw further impressed to him that the U.S. should continue to help the country fend off Russia’s attack.

“I feel the cruelty, and you feel the inhumanity,” Christie said during his trip, which included stops in the villages of Bucha and Moshchun, both on the outskirts of Kyiv. “And you look at this, and I don’t think there’s anyone in our country who would come here and see this and not feel as if these are the things that America needs to stand up to prevent.”

Vasilisa Stepanenko and Meg Kinnard have the full story: