{"text":[[{"start":10,"text":"Crimea’s largest cities were left without power on Wednesday as a Ukrainian commander said the country’s drone strikes had knocked out a major electricity substation overnight."}],[{"start":20,"text":"Kyiv has been waging an intensifying drone campaign on the Russian-occupied peninsula’s key infrastructure, recently hitting several substations, a railway bridge and other targets."}],[{"start":32.3,"text":"The commander of Ukraine’s military drone branch Robert Brovdi said the attacks put a key substation near Sevastopol “out of service” overnight."}],[{"start":41.599999999999994,"text":"“The Russian occupiers are losing control over the skies of Crimea,” Ukraine’s security service (SBU) said in a statement showing drones from the service’s ‘Alpha’ unit targeting Russian anti-air systems in the peninsula."}],[{"start":54.8,"text":"Once the crown jewel of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionist ambitions, the peninsula he annexed in 2014 has now become a liability more than four years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine."}],[{"start":67.39999999999999,"text":"Ukraine’s largely homegrown drone capabilities have allowed it to launch a new campaign aimed at a “middle-range” distance that has increasingly focused on the land corridor to Crimea as well as the peninsula itself."}],[{"start":80.14999999999999,"text":"The attacks aim to disrupt Russian military logistics and divert crucial resources away from the frontline. "}],[{"start":88.24999999999999,"text":"Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, claimed on Wednesday the Russian military had removed air-defence systems from several Russian regions to reinforce Moscow as well as the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland."}],[{"start":104.24999999999999,"text":"While Ukrainian drones have hit the peninsula in previous years, the pace of attacks has markedly increased in recent months, bolstered by increased drone production."}],[{"start":113.64999999999999,"text":"Ukraine’s General Staff also claimed it struck a gas-processing plant overnight on Wednesday in Orenburg, which houses Russia’s only helium plant and is deep behind enemy lines near the border with Kazakhstan. "}],[{"start":126.64999999999999,"text":"Two satellite communications centres in Dubna and the Vladimir region, both near Moscow, were also hit, according to the General Staff. "}],[{"start":135.25,"text":"The country’s Unmanned Systems Force said earlier this week its forces had hit more than 60 different targets in the past day in Russian-held Ukrainian regions, including a railway bridge, an oil depot and a gas distribution station in Crimea."}],[{"start":150.8,"text":"“Ukrainians in the occupied territories, please accept my apologies for the constant anxiety, the closed bridges and roads, the darkness, the noise and the stress — stay well away from military installations and anything flammable,” Brovdi wrote on social media on Sunday."}],[{"start":167.5,"text":"Despite a growing perception internationally that Ukraine’s advances in drone technology have helped it turn the tide, Putin has claimed that Russia still retains the upper hand on the battlefield."}],[{"start":178.8,"text":"In one of his few public responses to the new wave of attacks, Putin told his cabinet on Tuesday that Ukraine was trying to “strike our civilian infrastructure, create problems with energy supplies and affect the tourist season”."}],[{"start":192.95000000000002,"text":"Yet though Putin ordered his defence ministry and cabinet to “minimise” the effect of the Ukrainian attacks, Russia has so far struggled to repel them effectively or match Ukraine’s own technological advances."}],[{"start":205.75000000000003,"text":"Putin has yet to comment on a dramatic Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow’s largest oil refinery last Thursday, which sent enormous plumes of smoke billowing over the Russian capital. "}],[{"start":223.80000000000004,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782354117_8411.mp3"}