Ukrainian strikes kill four in Crimea, Russian officials say

June 4 (Reuters) – Ukrainian attacks killed four people in the Russia-annexed Crimea peninsula, ‌Kremlin-installed officials in the region said on Thursday, one day after Moscow and Kyiv traded strikes on each other’s cities.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea, said Ukrainian forces had hit a non-residential part of Simferopol, the peninsula’s ​main administrative town, killing three people and injuring seven.

Aksyonov later said on Telegram that ​one person had been killed and three wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a ⁠commuter train in eastern Crimea.

Ukraine did not immediately comment.

In the Crimean port of Sevastopol, the local ​Russia-installed governor said air defence units had intercepted more than 20 Ukrainian drones. He made no ​mention of casualties, but said drone debris had damaged some buildings.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea in 2014 – long before its 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine – after public protests in Kyiv prompted a Moscow-friendly president to flee Ukraine. Crimea ​is a popular destination for Russian tourists.

The region has taken measures to tackle fuel shortages after increasing ​Ukrainian strikes on oil industry targets, some deep inside Russia.

U.S.-brokered talks aimed at moving towards an end to ‌the ⁠more than four-year-old war have stalled as Washington remains focused on its war with Iran.

Russian shelling on Wednesday killed at least three civilians in Kramatorsk, one of Ukraine’s “fortress cities” near the front line, and eight people were injured near the city of Dnipro, local and regional officials said.

On Thursday, firefighters ​were extinguishing a blaze ​in the Boryspil area ⁠outside Kyiv after an industrial facility was hit in a drone attack, with one person injured, Ukraine’s emergency service said.

In Russia’s border region of ​Bryansk, the acting regional governor said a Ukrainian drone had killed a ​crane operator.

Ukrainian attacks ⁠on Moscow’s oil industry included a strike on an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Wednesday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said such strikes enable Ukraine “to end this war on equal footing”.

Twenty-three people were killed in attacks on Ukrainian ⁠cities ​on Tuesday after Moscow said it would launch “systematic” strikes in ​following a drone attack on a dormitory in Russian-occupied territory. Ukraine denies attacking the dormitory.