Kyiv forces have regained control of several offshore oil and gas drilling rigs near Crimea, the Military Intelligence Service of Ukraine (MUR) said on Monday.
Ukrainian troops in the course of a “one-off operation” recaptured the drilling platforms, known as “Boika Towers”.
The HUR said the platforms had been occupied by Russia since 2015, which illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, and had been used by Moscow for military purposes since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Reuters said it could not independently verify the GUR report, and Russia has yet to comment.
“For Ukraine, the restoration of control over the “Boik towers” was of strategic importance, and as a result, Russia lost the opportunity to use them for military purposes,” says the GUR message on the Telegram channel.
“Russia was deprived of the opportunity to fully control the water area of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to the return of Crimea,” the GUR said.
During the operation, Ukrainian commandos on boats collided with a Russian fighter jet, which was damaged and forced to retreat, the GUR notes.
GUR also captured other “valuable trophies”, such as ammunition for helicopters and a radar system that can monitor the movement of ships in the Black Sea, the Intelligence Service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports.
Before Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine extracted a significant amount of natural gas from the continental shelf of the Black Sea, supplying gas not only to Crimea, but also to the mainland regions of Ukraine.
Source: Hot News
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