Updated with Defense Ministry’s statement that one soldier went missing.
The headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in annexed Crimea was targeted by a missile strike on Friday, state media and Kremlin-installed officials said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry had said earlier that one serviceman was killed in the strike on Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet is based, but later updated its statement to say the soldier was in fact missing.
“The serviceman was not killed, but is missing,” it said.
Missile debris fell near a theater 200 meters from the Russian Navy’s headquarters, the Kremlin-installed head of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said.
An hour after Razvozhayev’s statement, Crimean Governor Sergei Aksyonov said air defense systems shot down multiple cruise missiles over the annexed peninsula.
Video shared by anonymously run channels on the Telegram messaging app showed charred columns and smoke coming out of a building identified as the Russian Navy’s headquarters.
Razvozhayev said emergency crews were fighting to put out the fire that broke out at the headquarters, but added that no civilian infrastructure in the area had been damaged.
“People who were outside at the moment of the strike were also unharmed,” he wrote on Telegram.
The attacks come a week after Ukraine said it damaged Russian warships and destroyed an air defense system in a series of strikes on Crimea.
