MOSCOW – Ukrainian drone strikes on Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea killed a man and wounded two other people, the city’s Moscow-installed governor said on Thursday.
Sevastopol, which is the historic home of the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet, has been heavily targeted by Ukraine throughout the four-year conflict.
“Air defense forces and our Black Sea Fleet have repelled the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack. A total of 27 UAVs were shot down,” Mikhail Razvozhayev posted on Telegram.
“A man who was in a private home in a gardening community during the attack died as a result of the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack on Sevastopol,” he said, adding two other people received moderate injuries.
The governor of the southwestern Russian region of Stavropol, Vladimir Vladimirov, posted on Telegram that air defenses were repelling a drone attack on an industrial zone.
Ukrainian authorities also reported strikes in the Black Sea port city of Odesa wounded three people.
The United States is pushing Kyiv and Moscow to agree to an elusive peace deal, but a third round of talks has been derailed by the war in the Middle East.
Meanwhile, in Kyiv, Energetic pop music blasted from speakers at a modern climbing gym in Kyiv as Ukrainian veterans stood at the foot of the wall doing burpees and crab walks, resistance bands looped around their prosthetic legs.
The men were wounded at the front fighting off the Russian invasion, which has now dragged into its fifth year and is seeing casualties mount every day.
Tens of thousands of wounded veterans are readjusting to civilian life, finding solace in the host of activities and communities popping up to cater to their growing numbers.
“It’s scary, it’s interesting, it’s adrenaline, it’s an unusual kind of physical exertion,” Oleg Khmylevskyi, a muscular 38-year-old who lost his right leg at the front, told AFP.
The men adjusted their harnesses before setting off to tackle the overhangs, latching on to colourful holds as they worked their way up.
According to the National Health Service of Ukraine, by early 2025, about 95,000 amputations had been performed since the invasion began.
Ukraine does not routinely disclose its total number of wounded soldiers, arguing Russia would benefit from such information. In late 2024, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy put the number at 370,000.
Ex-soldiers with missing limbs are often seen in the streets of Kyiv in military fatigues and on crutches.
According to a December survey by the Rating Group pollster, more than three-quarters of veterans said they feared a lack of understanding among society, and a similar number worried about the lack of inclusive spaces.
