Kyiv, Ukraine: Ukraine said it had struck part of Russia’s air defense system in annexed Crimea overnight, as Moscow said it repelled a major attempted missile strike on the peninsula on Monday.
Kyiv has increased attacks on the Black Sea peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, since it launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces earlier this year.
“The Armed Forces successfully hit a strategic object of the air defense system on the western coast of occupied Crimea,” the Ukrainian army’s strategic communications unit said on social media.
It gave no further details and Russia gave no official comment.
Later on Monday, Russia said its air defenses had successfully shot down eight Ukrainian missiles fired at the peninsula.
“On October 30, at around 13:00 (1000 GMT), an attempted attack by the Kyiv regime with eight Storm Shadow cruise missiles at targets on the Crimean peninsula was stopped,” Russia’s defense ministry said.
“As a result of air defense systems repelling the attack, all missiles were shot down,” it added.
Storm Shadows are British-supplied missile systems with a range of over 250 kilometers (155 miles) that enable Kyiv to hit targets deep behind the frontlines in the east and south of Ukraine.
One person was injured from falling debris, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol said.
Russian military bloggers had overnight reported Ukraine was stepping up its attacks on the peninsula.
The influential Rybar Telegram channel — which is close to the Russian army — said Kyiv had launched a “combined attack.”
It alleged Ukraine had launched two US ATACMS missiles which fell near the village of Olenivka, on the western coast of Crimea.
Rybar said Russian forces were not able to down the missiles “but thanks to measures taken earlier there was no serious damage.”
The social media account alleged that “half an hour later” Black Sea Fleet sailors discovered three Ukrainian naval drones near Sevastopol.
Rybar said one of them was “destroyed,” while another two tried to enter the Bay of Khersones before being shot at and sunk by Russian forces.
Ukraine has regularly targeted Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.
In September, Kyiv said it had hit a symbolic army headquarters in Sevastopol.
Ukraine says hit Russian air defense system in Crimea
Ukraine says hit Russian air defense system in Crimea
‘Doomsday Clock’ moves closer to midnight over threats from nukes, climate change, AI
- At the end of the Cold War, the clock was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds
WASHINGTON: Earth is closer than it’s ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the US and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” a science-oriented advocacy group said Tuesday as it advanced its “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds till midnight.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist members had an initial demonstration on Friday and then announced their results on Tuesday.
The scientists cited risks of nuclear war, climate change, potential misuse of biotechnology and the increasing use of artificial intelligence without adequate controls as it made the annual announcement, which rates how close humanity is from ending.
Last year the clock advanced to 89 seconds to midnight.
Since then, “hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation” needed to reduce existential risks, the group said.
They worry about the threat of escalating conflicts involving nuclear-armed countries, citing the Russia-Ukraine war, May’s conflict between India and Pakistan and whether Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons after strikes last summer by the US and Israel.
International trust and cooperation is essential because, “if the world splinters into an us-versus-them, zero-sum approach, it increases the likelihood that we all lose,” said Daniel Holz, chair of the group’s science and security board.
The group also highlighted droughts, heat waves and floods linked to global warming, as well as the failure of nations to adopt meaningful agreements to fight global warming — singling out US President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost fossil fuels and hobble renewable energy production.
Starting in 1947, the advocacy group used a clock to symbolize the potential and even likelihood of people doing something to end humanity.
At the end of the Cold War, it was as close as 17 minutes to midnight. In the past few years, to address rapid global changes, the group has changed from counting down the minutes until midnight to counting down the seconds.
The group said the clock could be turned back if leaders and nations worked together to address existential risks.
