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Ukraine Targets Key Crimean City a Day after Striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Headquarters

This handout satellite image released on September 23, 2023, by Planet Labs PBC shows an aerial view of the city of Sevastopol after a missile attack struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on September 22, 2023, sparking a huge fire and leaving at least one Russian serviceman missing. (Handout / Planet Labs PBC / AFP)
This handout satellite image released on September 23, 2023, by Planet Labs PBC shows an aerial view of the city of Sevastopol after a missile attack struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on September 22, 2023, sparking a huge fire and leaving at least one Russian serviceman missing. (Handout / Planet Labs PBC / AFP)
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Ukraine Targets Key Crimean City a Day after Striking Russia’s Black Sea Fleet Headquarters

This handout satellite image released on September 23, 2023, by Planet Labs PBC shows an aerial view of the city of Sevastopol after a missile attack struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on September 22, 2023, sparking a huge fire and leaving at least one Russian serviceman missing. (Handout / Planet Labs PBC / AFP)
This handout satellite image released on September 23, 2023, by Planet Labs PBC shows an aerial view of the city of Sevastopol after a missile attack struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea on September 22, 2023, sparking a huge fire and leaving at least one Russian serviceman missing. (Handout / Planet Labs PBC / AFP)

Ukraine on Saturday morning launched another missile attack on Sevastopol on the occupied Crimean Peninsula, a Russian-installed official said, a day after an attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet left a serviceman missing and the main building smoldering.

Sevastopol was put under an air raid alert for about an hour after debris from intercepted missiles fell near a pier, Gov. Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on the messaging app Telegram. Ferry traffic in the area was also halted and later resumed.

Loud blasts were also heard near Vilne in northern Crimea, followed by rising clouds of smoke, according to a pro-Ukraine Telegram news channel that reports on developments on the peninsula. Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, has been a frequent target for Ukrainian forces since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.

Ukraine's intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, told Voice of America on Saturday that at least nine people were killed and 16 others wounded as a result of Kyiv's attack on the Black Sea Fleet on Friday. He claimed that Alexander Romanchuk, a Russian general commanding forces along the key southeastern front line, was “in a very serious condition” following the attack.

Budanov's claim couldn't be independently verified, and he didn't comment on whether Western-made missiles were used in Friday's strike.

The Russian Defense Ministry initially said that Friday's strike killed one service member at the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, but later issued a statement that he was missing.

Ukraine’s military also offered more details about Friday's attack on Sevastopol. It said the air force conducted 12 strikes on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, targeting areas where personnel, military equipment and weapons were concentrated. It said that two anti-aircraft missile systems and four Russian artillery units were hit.

Crimea has served as the key hub supporting Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Sevastopol, the main base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since the 19th century, has had a particular importance for navy operations since the start of the war.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted naval facilities in Crimea in recent weeks while the brunt of its summer counteroffensive makes slow gains in the east and south of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War said. Military experts say it is essential for Ukraine to keep up its attacks on targets in Crimea to degrade Russian morale and weaken its military.

Elsewhere, Ukraine’s military said Saturday that Russia launched 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones at the front-line Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, as well as Dnipropetrovsk province farther north. It claimed to have destroyed 14 of the drones.

Separately, Zaporizhzhia regional Gov. Yuri Malashko said that Russia over the previous day carried out 86 strikes on 27 settlements in the province, many of them lying only a few kilometers (miles) from the fighting. Malashko said that an 82-year-old civilian was killed by artillery fire.

In the neighboring Kherson region, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said at least one person died and three other people were wounded over the past day because of Russian shelling. Russia fired 25 shells targeting the city of Kherson, which lies along the Dneiper River that marks the contact line between the warring sides, Prokudin said.

Residential quarters were hit, including medical and education institutions, government-built stations that serve food and drinks, as well as critical infrastructure facilities and a penitentiary, he said.

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Report: Airlines Fly Over Afghanistan as Mideast Becomes the Greater Risk

A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
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Report: Airlines Fly Over Afghanistan as Mideast Becomes the Greater Risk

A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa have increased their flights over Afghanistan after years of largely avoiding it now the Middle East conflict has made it seem a relatively safe option, Reuters reported.
The carriers mostly stopped transiting Afghanistan, which lies on major routes between Asia and Europe, three years ago when the Taliban took over and air traffic control services stopped.
Those services have yet to resume, but airlines increasingly consider the skies between Iran and Israel are riskier than Afghan airspace. Many had started routing through Iran and the Middle East after Russian skies were closed to most western carriers when the Ukraine war began in 2022.
"As conflicts have evolved, the calculus of which airspace to use has changed. Airlines are seeking to mitigate risk as much as possible and they see overflying Afghanistan as the safer option given the current tensions between Iran and Israel," Ian Petchenik, a spokesperson for flight tracking organization Flightradar24, said.
There were more than seven times the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August than during the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters analysis of FlightRadar24 data.
The shift began in mid-April during reciprocal missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel. Flight tracking data from the time shows Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and others began to send a few flights a day over Afghanistan.
But the main growth has been since the killing of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah in late July raised concerns of a major escalation.
Some pilots are concerned.
"You're depending on the analysis of your airline. Every time I fly out there, I don't like the feeling of flying over a conflict area where you don't know, actually, what is happening," said Otjan de Bruin, a commercial pilot and head of the European Cockpit Association.
"It's always safe enough, until proven otherwise."
Lufthansa Group told Reuters it decided to resume overflying Afghan airspace from early July.
Other carriers that have increased overflights since April include Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and the Air France-KLM group, data shows.
"Based on actual security information, KLM and other airlines currently safely overfly Afghanistan only on specific routes and only at high altitudes," KLM told Reuters.
British Airways, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and Singapore Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Taiwan's EVA Air began from late July, flight tracking data shows. EVA told Reuters it chooses routes based on safety, the current international situation and flight advisories.
REGULATION'S ROLE
The route changes have been facilitated by aviation regulators easing guidance on Afghanistan.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in early July said planes could fly at a lower altitude over a sliver of north-eastern Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor, which is used to cross from Tajikistan to Pakistan - opening that path to more types of flights.
A year earlier, the FAA lifted its ban on overflights for the entire country, but said planes must stay above 32,000 feet (9,753.6 m) where surface-to-air weapons are considered less effective.
But few started using Afghanistan until April.
Although more traffic has been using the airspace without incident, there is no guarantee of crew or passenger safety if a plane has to land, flight safety group OPSGROUP said in July.
In the absence of air traffic control, pilots crossing Afghanistan talk to nearby planes over radio according to a protocol drawn up by UN aviation body ICAO and Afghanistan's Civil Aviation Authority.
European aviation safety regulator EASA said in a conflict-zone information bulletin re-issued in July that "extremist non-state actor groups remain active and might sporadically target aviation facilities in multiple ways."
The industry is haunted by the memory of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.
COST AND LIMITED CHOICE
Airlines are under pressure to save money after the loss since 2022 of many shorter paths through Russian airspace, and as they re-build from the pandemic.
There are few international rules that dictate which areas of airspace are safe and airline safety decisions are left largely to the discretion of individual carriers.
If an airline cannot fly through Russia, Ukraine or Iran, central Afghanistan offers a more direct route into southern Asia from Europe.
"This route saved us a fair chunk of time and fuel," OPSGROUP reported from a pilot in July who flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur across central Afghanistan.