Kyiv claims Crimea landing in ‘special forces operation’

Ukraine’s GUR intelligence agency said a flag was planted during the raid into the annexed territory to mark independence day.

Jonas Gahr Store, left, is embraced by Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

Ukraine said on Thursday its forces had flown the country’s flag in Russian-annexed Crimea during a “special operation” to mark its second wartime Independence Day, as Norway announced fighter jets for Kyiv.

Ukraine’s GUR intelligence agency said its special forces had landed overnight on Crimea’s western shore near the towns of Olenivka and Mayak, where they had “engaged in combat”.

“As a result, the enemy suffered losses among personnel. Enemy equipment was destroyed,” it said, adding that the “state flag flew again in the Ukrainian Crimea”.

Kyiv repeatedly has said it aims to take back Crimea, which is recognised internationally as part of Ukraine but has been controlled by Russia since 2014, when Moscow’s forces seized the peninsula.

Ukraine has launched several attacks on the Black Sea peninsula since the start of Moscow’s invasion, and it refers to the territory as “temporarily occupied” in statements.

Kyiv said on Wednesday it had destroyed a powerful Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system in that area, inflicting a “painful blow” on enemy air defences.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, who made a surprise Independence Day visit to Kyiv, announced his country would donate an unspecified number of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to bolster its air force.

Norway is the third country after Denmark and The Netherlands to pledge F-16s to Ukraine.

In Washington, the Pentagon announced it would start F-16 training for “several” Ukrainian pilots and “dozens” of maintenance personnel next month, beginning with English language lessons. The training normally would last from five to eight months, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said, depending on the skills the pilots already possess.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his Independence Day message, urged his fellow citizens not to “lose faith in these difficult times”.

“We honoured the memory of the fallen defenders of our country,” Mr Zelensky wrote in a Telegram message after visiting St Sophia’s Cathedral in Kyiv with his wife. Freedom, he added, was a “value for each of us and we are fighting for it”.

On Khreshchatyk Street in the heart of the Ukrainian capital, people took selfies next to charred and wrecked Russian tanks and armoured vehicles captured from the battlefield.

People milled around the street, gazing at the hardware that had been arranged in a long line as war trophies.

The country’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said on Telegram that the fight for independence “continues to this day – now with the imperial aggressor” Russia.

The state holiday, which marks 32 years since Ukraine declared its post-Soviet independence from Moscow, comes as the war with Russia entered its 19th month.

A Russian missile strike wounded at least 10 people in the central city of Dnipro. A local official posted several photos of a damaged transport facility, showing gutted buildings, shattered windows and debris.

In southern Ukraine, Russian shelling in Kherson wounded a seven-year-old girl. Ukrainian troops recaptured the city in November and it continues to face Russian bombardment.

DTEK, the largest commercial energy company in Ukraine, said on Telegram that one of its thermal power plants was hit by Russian bombardment. It suffered damage in the attack but there were no casualties, it added.

Repeated strikes on energy infrastructure last winter plunged Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold.

In Moscow, a court sentenced Russian blogger and political activist Maxim Katz in absentia to eight years’ jail on charges of having spread “false information” about the Russian army.

Katz, who has fled Russia, regularly criticises the conflict on his YouTube channel, which has more than 1.8 million subscribers.

And the US announced fresh sanctions on Russian officials and groups on Thursday over what rights organisations call the forced transfer of thousands of Ukrainian children since Moscow’s invasion.

AFP