Several cities on the peninsula came under attack overnight, according to local officials

At least three people were killed and seven others wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack on Simferopol, while air defenses in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol intercepted more than 20 UAVs overnight.

The strikes by Kiev's UAVs damaged several "nonresidential facilities" and killed three people in Simferopol, in the central part of the peninsula, Aksyonov wrote in a post on Telegram on Thursday morning. The governor expressed condolences to the relatives and friends of those killed and wished the injured a speedy recovery.

The Crimean port city of Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and has the status of a federal city, was also attacked, according to its governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev. At least 20 incoming drones were shot down by air defenses, with two incidents of drone debris falling in residential areas. No injuries were reported.

The attack on Crimea came less than a day after a Ukrainian strike on a passenger bus en route from Moscow to Simferopol through Russia's Donetsk People's Republic (DPR). Eight civilians were killed and 11 others injured in what Russian authorities are investigating as an act of "terrorism."

Moscow previously warned that it would carry out "systematic and consistent strikes" on Ukraine's military infrastructure, such as drone production facilities, command posts, and "decision-making centers," in response to Kiev's terrorist attacks, including the one in Russia's Lugansk People's Republic on May 22.

Ukrainian forces struck a college dormitory in the town of Starobelsk in several waves of drone attacks late at night while students were asleep, killing 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and injuring dozens of others.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that the Ukrainian leadership had opened "a new chapter in its crime spree" with the attack on Starobelsk, adding that those responsible would face "well-deserved and inevitable punishment."

On May 24, Moscow launched a large-scale missile and drone attack against military-related targets in Ukraine, among other things deploying intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik systems. Another major Russian raid took place on Tuesday, targeting defense industry facilities in Kiev, parts of Zaporozhye and Kherson regions still under Kiev's control, as well as Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnitsky, and Sumy regions.

(RT.com)