(Reuters) -A Ukrainian drone attack killed two people and injured 15 on Sunday in a resort area of the Crimea peninsula, Russia’s Defence Ministry said.
“At about 19.30 Moscow time (1630 GMT) in the resort area of Crimea where there are no military targets whatsoever, the Ukrainian armed forces launched a terrorist strike using strike drones equipped with high-explosive payloads,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.
“As a result of this terrorist attack, according to preliminary information, two civilians were killed and 15 people received injuries of varying degrees.”
The ministry described the incident as a “premeditated terrorist attack on a civilian target”.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-appointed head of Crimea, had earlier said on Telegram that the attack had targeted a sanatorium in the town of Foros.
Aksyonov said a school in the town had also been damaged and fires had broken out on open ground near Yalta, farther to the northeast along Crimea’s southern shore.
Ukrainian officials issued no comment on the incident and Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 in the aftermath of a popular uprising in Kyiv that prompted a Russia-friendly president to flee Ukraine.
Foros gained a measure of international notoriety in 1991 when Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was briefly detained at a government dacha, or country house, during a shortlived attempt by hardliners to unseat him.
(Reporting by Reuters)
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