Ukrainian commandos staged a raid in occupied Crimea in a symbolic move on the nation's Independence Day, as more of Kyiv's forces pressed a counterattack on the mainland that's threatening to break through Moscow's lines.
Using speedboats, special forces landed in a bay on the westernmost edge of the peninsula overnight in the first such sortie since the start of the war last year, Ukraine's Military Intelligence said on the website, without specifying the size of the unit.
The commandos attacked Russian positions, destroyed military equipment and hoisted a Ukrainian flag before returning to a base without casualties, it said.
“Those are our guys,” Volodymyr Zelensky said about the operation during an Independence Day ceremony in the capital. “We will not lose our grip on Ukrainian independence.”
The raid took place a day after Kyiv reported its forces had destroyed a Russian air-defense unit on the peninsula and the reported death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, whose Wagner mercenary group seized the city of Bakhmut earlier this year in a lengthy siege that killed and wounded thousands of soldiers on both sides.
Russian officials and military haven't publicly commented on the Crimea raid.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops reported progress near the town of Robotyne in the south, where they are fighting through Russian minefields and trench systems in a push aimed at cutting off the Kremlin's land bridge to its forces in Crimea.
Russian officials, including former President Dmitry Medvedev, have threatened significant retaliation against Ukraine if it attacks Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014.
Kyiv's military has stepped up attacks on the peninsula, using an array of weapons from naval drones to missiles and now special forces. But Crimea may still be difficult to recapture after Russia made it a virtual fortress, with trench and bunker fortifications protecting naval, air force and infantry bases on an area the size of the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
“It's too early to speak about Crimea's liberation,” Zelenskiy said during the ceremony on Thursday.
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