The city of Kerch in occupied Crimea was plunged into darkness overnight after Ukrainian drone strikes caused a total blackout, Russian authorities said."Unfortunately, as a result of an enemy (drone) attack, Kerch is completely without power," Ivan Koshel, the Kremlin-installed head of the occupied city, said on social media. "Life-support facilities are operating thanks to backup power sources. All municipal services are involved in emergency repair and restoration work."Russia's Defense Ministry claimed 93 Ukrainian drones had been downed overnight. The strikes are part of Ukraine's ongoing effort to isolate occupied Crimea by disrupting the military and commercial infrastructure that sustains the peninsula.Crimean energy company Krymenergo — which was unlawfully taken over when Russia illegally annexed the peninsula in 2014 — confirmed the outages and also reported wider disruption."Power outages will be implemented promptly, depending on the situation in the power districts. In the current situation, it is not possible to inform the public about power supply times," it said in a post on social media.The Kerch blackout follows a string of recent strikes on Crimea's power grid — Ukraine's Special Operations Forces (SOF) said separately on July 15 that its drones had hit the Balaklava thermal power station in occupied Sevastopol a day earlier."The SOF added that members of its resistance movement operating underground helped conduct the strike.According to the SOF, preliminary reports indicated that the attack damaged the plant's machine hall, which houses the cooling system of one of its Siemens SGT5-2000E turbines. The SOF said that if the pumping equipment was damaged, repairs could take between two and five months.The SOF described the Balaklava thermal power station as the "backbone" of the peninsula's energy supply, saying it produces almost 50% of the electricity in occupied Crimea."Striking power generation facilities on the Crimean bridgehead significantly undermines the Russian Federation's army's offensive and defensive capabilities, reduces its operational tempo and the resilience of its logistical support," the SOF said.Ukraine's naval drone campaign also continued overnight on July 15, with 20 Russian vessels struck in the Black Sea, Robert "Madyar" Brovdi, commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces, said.It follows a series of daily reports by Brovdi detailing strikes on Russian shipping in the Sea of Azov."Crimea has essentially turned into a military base for the Russians, allowing them to continue occupying the south of our country and transfer forces to the east," Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on July 1."Therefore, from both a military and logistical perspective, it is an important target for us."