Ukraine’s armed forces said they hit marine and port infrastructure at a factory in the port city of Kerch in Russian-occupied Crimea on Saturday.
“The evening of November 4th Armed Forces of Ukraine implemented successful strikes on marine and port infrastructure of the ‘Zalyv’ factory in the temporarily-occupied city of Kerch,” the Department for Strategic Communications of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Telegram post, giving no further details.
Earlier, Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, said air defence systems had been in action around a Kerch shipyard named after B.E. Butoma, as the Zalyv shipyard is now known.
“Fragments of downed missiles fell onto territory of one of the dry docks,” Aksyonov said in a Telegram post. “There were no casualties.”
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Reuters was unable to verify details of the statement, nor earlier social media posts, including video, of missile activity and a fire and smoke the posts said was rising from the same location the Ukrainian military referenced.
Earlier on Saturday, Russian attacks in Ukraine have wounded at least 14 civilians over the past day, officials said as the president of the European Union (EU)’s executive arm returned to the Ukrainian capital to meet Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Nine people were hurt in a Russian rocket strike on the village of Zarichne, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Yurii Malashko, said.
Overall, 26 cities and settlements in the region have come under attack over the past day, he said.
In the Kherson region, five people were injured, governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
Attacks in the region came from artillery, mortars, drones, warplanes and tanks, he added.
Nikopol, a city of the opposite bank of the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, Europe’s largest, came under fire, but no injuries were immediately reported, according to Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Serhii Lysak.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen arrived in Kyiv on Saturday morning and was met by Mr Zelenskiy at the train station.
She tweeted that talks during her sixth visit would focus on the path for Ukraine to join the EU “and how we will continue to make Russia pay for its war of aggression”.
The visit came a week before she is due to present a report on the enlargement of the EU, which Ms von der Leyen said will note Kyiv’s progress on its path to membership in the 27-member bloc.
“I must say you have made excellent progress. This is impressive to see,” she said after the meeting Mr Zelenskiy.
“We should never forget you are fighting an existential war and at the same time you are deeply reforming your country.” - AP
Ukraine applied to join the European Union days after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and sees joining the trade bloc as a top priority.
[ Ukraine needs leap in military technology to beat Russia, top general saysOpens in new window ]
The EU’s 27 members are due at a summit in December to decide whether to allow Kyiv to begin accession negotiations, a move requiring the unanimous backing of all the bloc’s members.
Ukraine’s bid got a boost on Thursday when German minister for foreign affairs Annalena Baerbock said she was confident the bloc would advance Ukraine’s application next month.
Membership talks typically take years and involve extensive legal, political and economic reform. Ukraine’s case is made much harder by the war raging in its south and east with no end in sight.
Ms von der Leyen’s visit came as Ukraine’s troops battle fatigue and concerns swirl over the future of US military assistance which Kyiv relies on heavily.
Meanwhile, Russian forces, focused for weeks on seizing the key eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, are now intent on capturing its vast coking plant, the town’s mayor said on Friday.
Ukrainian military officials said a heavy overnight set of drone strikes on widely separated regions showed new attacks on infrastructure were to be expected as winter approaches.
Russia’s military has focused on the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk after abandoning the initial aim of capturing Kyiv in the early days of the February 2022 invasion.
Russian forces captured the devastated town of Bakhmut in May after months of battles and since mid-October have focused their assaults on Avdiivka, a potential gateway to Donetsk, held by Russian forces and their allies since 2014.
Ukraine’s general staff, in a Friday evening report, said its forces had repelled 17 attacks on and around Avdiivka.
Mayor Vitaliy Barabash, speaking on national television, said audio transmission intercepts had revealed that Moscow was now seeking to secure the town’s giant coking plant.
“They have a new aim and that’s the coking plant. They have to take it. Period,” Mr Barabash said.
“We understand that a [new] third wave of attacks is bound to start any day once the ground dries out and they can move forward. They are engaged in a build-up. We see and hear that.”
Ukrainian military analysts say a sustained assault on Avdiivka had more political that military significance and could be little more than a propaganda prize for Moscow.
The general staff report also said that Ukrainian forces had repelled seven attacks near Kupiansk, a town in the northeast first seized by Russia but recaptured by Ukrainian forces in a fast-moving offensive late last year.
Natalia Homeniuk, a spokesperson for the southern group of forces, said Russia’s Friday overnight attacks “used a large number of drones for the first time in a long while”.
“Most likely, the enemy will launch more drones and missiles as the cold weather sets in,” Ms Homeniuk told a briefing.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 24 “Shahed” drones out of 40 launched by Russia against targets in Kharkiv in the northeast, Odesa and Kherson in the south and the region of Lviv on Ukraine’s border with Poland in the west.
Ukraine has captured villages in the south and east in its four-month-old counteroffensive, but Mr Zelenskiy denies Western criticism that it has moved too slowly.
Russian accounts of the fighting said Moscow’s forces beat back Ukrainian attempts to advance near Kupiansk and struck Ukrainian forces in a series of towns south and west of Donetsk.
Reuters could not verify accounts from either side. – Reuters/AP