Russian strikes kill Ukrainian grain tycoon; drone hits Russian Naval base

UKRAINE, RUSSIA: Russian missiles pounded the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv on Sunday, killing the owner of a major grain exporter, while a drone strike on Russia’s Black Sea naval base in Sevastopol was launched from within the city in a “terrorist attack,” a Russian lawmaker said.

Oleksiy Vadatursky, founder and owner of agriculture company Nibulon, and his wife were killed in their home, Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram.

Headquartered in Mykolaiv, a strategically important city that borders the mostly Russian-occupied Kherson region, Nibulon specialises in the production and export of wheat, barley and corn, and has its own fleet and shipyard.

In Russian-occupied Sevastopol, five Russian navy staff members were injured by an explosion after a presumed drone flew into the courtyard of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the Crimean port city’s governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev told Russian media.

But Olga Kovitidi, a member of Russia’s Upper House of Parliament, told the Russian RIA news agency that the attack was “undoubtedly carried out not from outside, but from the territory of Sevastopol.”

The Sevastopol attack coincided with Russia’s Navy Day, which President Vladimir Putin marked by announcing that the navy would receive what he called “formidable” hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles in coming months. The missiles can travel at nine times the speed of sound, outrunning air defences.

– THE MALAY MAIL