Around 9:00 pm a powerful explosion thundered over Kerch. According to eyewitnesses, the sound was so strong that the walls of the houses trembled and alarms went off in cars parked in the gardens.
“People jumped onto balconies, someone said they saw a glow in the sky,” writes Komsomolskaya Pravda, referring to a local resident.
It was recorded that the sound was also heard in different parts of the city and in the nearby villages of Priozernoe, Bagerovo and Glazovka. According to the local community on VKontakte, Kerch News, several explosions were heard: at 20:41, 20:56 and 20:58.
Oleg Kryuchkov, information policy adviser to Crimean President Sergey Aksyonov, said that air defense systems are working in Kerch.
“There is no danger to the city and the bridge,” the official said. He later wrote that the Ukrainian media launched “a massive information campaign against the inhabitants of Crimea”, allegedly “the threat of an eruption of hostility” on the peninsula. Kryuchkov urged to believe only official information.
Drone in the Kerch region
Volodymyr Rogov, a member of the main council of the administration of the Zaporozhye region, later said that a Ukrainian drone was shot down in the Kerch region.
“According to preliminary information, a Ukrainian drone was shot down at a great distance from the Crimean bridge,” he said. According to Rogov, “no casualties and no destruction.”
The press service of FKU Uprdor “Taman” emphasized: bridge in good working condition.
Attempt to attack the airport in Sevastopol
Telegraph channels, citing eyewitnesses, also reported strong explosions near Belbek airbase in Sevastopol.
According to preliminary data, air defense systems also shot down a drone in the Belbek airspace area.
“No injuries. Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said that no one was injured.
He urged to remain calm and rely only on information from reliable sources. “The Dill people are already seeing that they are starting to disperse preparations for their ‘successful’ attack,” he said.
There is a yellow (high) level of terrorist threat in Crimea. It was previously extended until August 24. The same regime operates in the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions.
On August 17, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the office of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, announced in an interview with The Guardian the plans of the Ukrainian armed forces to destroy the Crimean bridge. He described the construction of the bridge as “illegal” and stressed the great military significance of the crossing for Russia.
“Such objects must be destroyed,” said Podolyak. He did not specify exactly how the attack on the Crimean bridge was planned, but, according to the newspaper, the politician made it clear that Ukraine considers the bridge a “military target”.
Plans to attack Crimea
Citing a senior White House official, Politico wrote that the United States allowed Ukraine to use American weapons to strike in Crimea.
“Of course we do not choose targets and everything we provide is for self-defense. Any target they decide to pursue on sovereign Ukrainian territory is, by definition, self-defense.”
– The official said and emphasized that “Crimea is Ukraine” according to the US position.
Earlier, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov, in an interview with Voice of America (the organization was included in the list of foreign agents by the Ministry of Justice), said that Kiev had agreed with Washington not to use supplied weapons against facilities. In Russia. However, this does not apply to the Crimea, the Donbass and a number of other regions.
“If today we are talking about the occupation of the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine, where the enemy is located, then, accordingly, we have no such restrictions,” Reznikov said.
He also gave an evasive answer to the question of whether Ukraine had weapons capable of hitting Crimea.
“Every weapon has an appropriate effective range. Therefore, it means whether it is possible to achieve this or that goal, depending on which point, from which place the defeat was delivered or planned. ”
Reznikov made it clear that Ukraine has not yet received ATACMS missiles for the HIMARS MLRS with a range of 300 km from the USA.
I hope a political decision will be made on the ATACMS missiles. “As HIMARS has already significantly changed the picture of war, ATACMS will also make many positive impacts on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense had previously acknowledged that they could attack the Crimean territory with the help of HIMARS MLRS, since the US does not consider the peninsula to be part of Russia. At the same time, the Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Dmitry Marchenko noted that the bridge from Kerch to Taman has become “target number one”. The Ukrainian presidential office stated that they will hit the Crimean bridge as soon as the “first technical possibility” arises, noting that equipment was delivered from the bridge to the peninsula.
The Federation Council of the Russian Federation described these statements as evidence of the need for “reparation and disarmament” of the entire territory of Ukraine. The Kremlin has described such threats as “a declaration of a possible terrorist act”.
On the morning of August 16, a fire broke out on the territory of a temporary military depot in the Dzhankoysky district of Crimea, followed by the explosion of ammunition stored there. The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported that the cause of the incident was sabotage.
On August 9, a series of explosions occurred on the territory of the Saki military airfield near the Crimean village of Novofedorovka. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that a large number of aviation munitions exploded in the packaged storage area. The result was a fire. The ministry ruled out the possibility of shelling.