Russian defense officials announced in a daily briefing that their air defense had found and destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea overnight.
Russia’s assertion could not be independently verified. Without offering further information, a Russian-installed official had claimed that Ukraine had launched drones at Crimea overnight.
Separately, the defense ministry said that its troops had taken two “blocks” in the western and northern areas of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
The FSB of Russia claims to have prevented a Ukrainian airport attack
According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russian security personnel prevented Ukrainian intelligence from attacking a military airfield in central Russia with drones loaded with explosives.
An A-50 radar detection plane at the Severnyy airport in the Ivanovo district, around 700 km (435 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was the attack’s objective, according to a statement on the FSB website. It said that in coordination with the interior ministry, its operatives had stopped the attack.
The statement added that after flying in from Ukraine, the pilot of a small plane and several members of what the FSB called a “sabotage group” were apprehended in the Tula region.
Polish border police plane barely avoids collision with Russian aircraft
According to Romania and Poland, a Polish border guard aircraft on patrol for Frontex, the European Union’s border agency, on Friday nearly avoided colliding with a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea near Romania.
A Russian SU-35 jet made “aggressive and dangerous manoeuvres” as it approached a Polish plane without maintaining a safe distance, which caused turbulence, lost altitude, and the Polish crew temporarily losing control of the plane. A border patrol spokesperson, Anna Michalska, said something on Twitter.
“The Russian jet flew just in front of the nose of the Polish plane, crossing its trajectory at a dangerous distance, estimated by the crew at about five metres,” Michalska said.
