Russia says it shot down 36 Ukrainian drones as fighting grinds on in Ukraine’s east

Russia's Defence Ministry said air defences destroyed 36 Ukrainian drones over Black Sea and Crimea. Local authorities said a fire broke out at oil refinery, possibly caused by drone strike. Ukrainian air force shot down 5 Iranian-made drones.

Russian air defence shot down over 30 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula overnight Saturday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on October 29.

“The air defense systems in place destroyed 36 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea and the northwestern part of the Crimean peninsula,” the Ministry wrote on Telegram.

Local authorities in the southern Krasnodar region bordering the Black Sea said that a fire broke out at an oil refinery in the early hours of October 29 but did not specify the cause. “The reasons for the incident are being established,” a statement from local authorities said, amid claims in local media outlets that the fire had been caused by a drone strike or debris from a downed drone.

Drone strikes and shelling on the Russian border regions and Moscow-annexed Crimea are a regular occurrence. Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula.

In Ukraine, the country’s air force said on October 29 it had shot down five Iranian-made Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia overnight.

Close to the front line in the country’s east, where Ukrainian and Russian forces are locked in a grinding battle for control, four police officers were wounded when a shell fired by Russian troops exploded by their police car in the city of Siversk, located in the partly occupied Donetsk province.

British intelligence assessed this weekend that Russia had suffered some of its biggest casualty rates so far this year as a result of continued “heavy but inconclusive” fighting around the town of Avdiivka, also in the Donetsk province. The U.K. Ministry of Defence’s regular intelligence update on October 28 morning noted that Russia had committed “elements of up to eight brigades” in the area since it launched its “major offensive effort” in mid-October.