Zelenskyy: Night Attack Damages Navy   08/12 06:35

   Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, jet-powered aerial drones and sea drones 
blitzed a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast in a "unique" 
nighttime operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday.

   KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, jet-powered aerial 
drones and sea drones blitzed a major Russian naval base on the Black Sea coast 
in a "unique" nighttime operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 
Wednesday.

   Cutting-edge drones developed by Kyiv since Russia invaded more than four 
years ago have repeatedly targeted Russian ships in the Black Sea, including 
warships and oil tankers. Both countries have Black Sea shorelines.

   Ukraine's uncrewed fleet has succeeded in limiting the movements of Russia's 
once-dominant Black Sea navy, Kyiv officials say, in one of the country's 
biggest accomplishments of the war.

   But Ukrainian officials reckon that Russian President Vladimir Putin is bent 
on prosecuting the invasion, despite his bigger army's slow and costly progress 
on the battlefield and U.S. diplomatic efforts to find a settlement.

   Putin is planning "an additional rapid mobilization of several hundred 
thousand Russians by the end of the year," Zelenskyy said on social media late 
Tuesday, citing Ukrainian intelligence reports.

   Those reports have also said recently that Russia is expanding production of 
ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones, both of which are hard for Ukrainian 
air defenses to counter.

   Meanwhile, Ukraine is also trying to scale up its weapons manufacturing 
through agreements with partner countries, as both countries apparently plan to 
fight on.

   Ukraine says it hit Black Sea port infrastructure

   The Ukrainian military "carried out a unique operation targeting the naval 
base in Novorossiysk -- the last major stronghold of the Russian fleet in the 
Black Sea," Zelenskyy said in a social media post Wednesday.

   The attack struck air defenses, piers and other port infrastructure in the 
Krasnodar region city, he added.

   Krasnodar region Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said that hundreds of Ukrainian 
drones attacked Novorossiysk, Anapa and Gelendzhik and the Temryuk district of 
the region overnight.

   Russian air defenses downed more than 500 Ukrainian drones, the Defense 
Ministry in Moscow said.

   In Novorossiysk, an eight-year old child was killed in the attack, and a 
person wounded when his house in the Temryuk region was hit later died in 
hospital, Kondratyev said. He added that 12 other people in the region were 
wounded.

   Debris from downed drones fell on the territory of four industrial plants 
and 21 residential buildings, according to Kondratyev, but officials gave no 
details of any damage.

   Novorossiysk is also home to a key international oil terminal. The 
Grushovaya oil transshipment complex near Novorossiysk is one of the largest 
transshipment hubs in southern Russia for oil and petroleum products.

   Last February, the U.S. State Department expressed its displeasure about 
Ukraine's attacks on Novorossiysk, saying they have impacted U.S. oil interests 
in Kazakhstan.

   The Caspian Pipeline Consortium operates a pipeline from the Caspian coast 
in northwest Kazakhstan to Novorossiysk. The pipeline handles much of the crude 
exports from three major Kazakh fields in which major U.S. energy companies, 
Chevron and ExxonMobil, have stakes.

   In illegally annexed Crimea, air defenses downed 115 Ukrainian drones over 
Sevastopol overnight, the city's Russia-appointed head Mikhail Razvozhayev 
said, adding that 10 apartment buildings and 25 private houses were damaged.

   Russian drone attacks kill 2 and destroy a shopping mall

   Meanwhile, Ukraine's air force said Wednesday that Russia fired 138 
long-range strike drones as well as an unspecified number of missiles at 
Ukraine during the night. Damage was recorded at 16 locations across the 
country, it said.

   In the southern Kherson region of Ukraine, a large-scale Russian drone 
attack overnight killed two people and wounded two others, regional head 
Oleksandr Prokudin said Wednesday.

   The attacks also destroyed a shopping mall in the southern Ukraine city of 
Zaporizhzhia, according to authorities.