Blasts rocks Russian airbase in occupied Crimea

ANKARA

Blasts rocked an airbase on Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday, local sources said.

Citing Viktoria Kazmirova, deputy head of the local administration, Russian state-run news agency TASS reported that blasts occurred at the Saki military airdrome near Novofedorivka, in western Crimea on the Black Sea coast.

Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to Crimea’s leadership, confirmed reports of the explosions.

"So far, I can only confirm that several blasts occurred near Novofedorivka,” he said, according to TASS.

The Saki military airdrome near Novofedorivka is used by the Russian Defense Ministry, including for naval aircraft, the report added.

In what some call a prelude to the current Russian war on Ukraine, launched on Feb. 24, Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, in a move condemned by the US, EU, UN General Assembly, and Türkiye.