25.08.2026 17:59

The Nar-Motel hotel in the occupied village of Strilkove on the Arabat Spit burned down following a drone attack. Russian military personnel had been stationed there. The occupiers had previously seized the hotel from its owner, Crimean Tatar Nariman Ablyazov.

Ukrinform reported this, citing a Facebook post by Esender Bariev, head of the board of the Crimean Tatar Resource Center and a member of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People.

“How Magjar’s ‘birds’ flew to Arabatka. A light show began, a flock of friendly birds, buzzing cheerfully, came to visit the village of Chokrak (Strilkove) rather than passing through. They flew low, in circles, and for quite a while. Then there was an explosion. According to eyewitnesses, the strike occurred near the Nar-Motel,” Bariev wrote.

The hotel’s owner, Ablyazov, was detained by the occupiers in Henichesk, Kherson region, on September 4, 2023, and later sentenced. He was sentenced to three years and six months for participation in the Noman Çelebicihan Battalion, including one year in prison and one year of restricted freedom, according to Bariev.

At the beginning of the occupation of Henichesk, the occupiers detained Nariman Ablyazov’s wife and held her for some time in the basement of Vocational School No. 17. She was later released, but the occupiers continued to persecute the family. The hotel was seized and used to house a special unit of Russia’s Federal Service of National Guard Troops.

The Nar-Motel burned down into ground, and the “residents” were also burned alive—the occupiers had reportedly just brought in about 40 new servicemen. Neither firefighters nor an ambulance arrived. The military transported their wounded to a hospital. The fire was fought manually, using buckets of water and shovels, he added.

“Apparently, the firefighters could not come because strikes were being carried out across the entire spit—in Henicheskaya Hirka and Shchaslyvtseve. Large drones continued flying until midnight, unlike the usual ones, and then four powerful explosions were heard in Henicheskaya Hirka, in the area of the underground town,” Bariev wrote.

According to Baruev, the Henichesk hospital is overcrowded with Russian military personnel and their collaborators.

As previously reported by Ukrinform, on August 23 and overnight into August 24, Ukrainian Defense Forces struck a number of Russian military facilities. Among the targets hit were command posts in Strilkove, Kherson region, and Staromlynivka, Donetsk region.

In June, drones struck a base used by Russian prison service personnel on the Arabat Spit.

(C)UKRINFORM 2026