(LONDON) — Ukrainian drones attacked the Russian Black Sea coast overnight into Tuesday morning, according to the Russian Defense Ministry and local officials, just hours after President Vladimir Putin took virtual meetings from his residence there in the coastal resort city of Sochi.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 31 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 15 over the Black Sea, two over Crimea and two over Krasnodar Krai, the Black Sea region in which Sochi is located.
Putin took part in a video meeting of BRICS nations from his Sochi residence on Monday afternoon, the Kremlin said in an official readout. It is not clear whether the president was still at his residence during the nighttime Ukrainian drone attack.
At least one person was killed in Sochi during the attack, local Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev said in a post to Telegram. The man was killed when fragments of a falling drone hit the car he was driving, Kondratiev said. Six houses were also damaged in the attack, Kondratiev said.
Sochi Mayor Andrey Proshunin posted photos of the damage to Telegram, saying a military monument was also struck by debris. Proshunin posted photos of damage in the Adlersky district of the city, just south of Sochi International Airport.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, also introduced temporary flight restrictions at the airport in the early hours of Tuesday.
Bocharov Ruchey, the Russian president’s summer residence, is located in the Tsentralny district in the northwest of Sochi, around 17 miles from the international airport.
The residence was in regular use by Putin before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Putin hosted former U.S. President George Bush there in 2008, and reportedly used the residence during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Russian media reports suggested that Putin stopped using the residence from 2024 amid intensifying Ukrainian drone attacks. Reports also suggested that parts of the residence may have been demolished in recent years.
Russia continued its own long-range strike campaign on Ukraine, with the air force in Kyiv reporting 84 drones launched into the country overnight into Tuesday. Sixty craft were shot down or suppressed, the air force said, with the impacts of 23 drones recorded across 10 locations.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that at least 21 people were killed in a “savage” Russian airstrike on the village of Yarova in eastern Donetsk Oblast on Tuesday. The strike hit as people there gathered to collect their pensions, Zelenskyy said.
One person was also killed and one person injured by Russian fire in the southern frontline Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Federov said.
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