Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says a nighttime blitz damages Russia’s Black Sea naval stronghold

Anti-ship missiles, aerial and sea drones blitzed a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, jet-powered aerial drones and sea drones blitzed a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast in a “unique” nighttime operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

Cutting-edge drones developed by Kyiv since Russia invaded more than four years ago have repeatedly targeted Russian ships in the Black Sea, including warships and oil tankers. Both countries have Black Sea shorelines.

Ukraine’s uncrewed fleet has succeeded in limiting the movements of Russia’s once-dominant Black Sea navy, Kyiv officials say, in one of the country’s biggest accomplishments of the war.

But Ukrainian officials reckon that Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent on prosecuting the war, despite his bigger army’s slow and costly progress on the battlefield and U.S. diplomatic efforts to find a settlement.

Putin is planning “an additional rapid mobilization of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Tuesday, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.