KYIV, Ukraine - Ukraine on Thursday said it had struck a military airfield on the Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula, the latest claimed attack on the Black Sea territory Kyiv has vowed to recapture.

The Russian-installed authorities there immediately denied the claim.

"On the night of September 21, the Defense Forces of Ukraine launched a combined attack on a military airfield of the occupiers near the city of Saky in the temporarily occupied Crimea," the army's communication department said in a statement on social media.

But Oleg Kryuchkov, an advisor to the Moscow-installed governor of Crimea said: "Our air defence shot everything down."

A source in Ukraine's SBU security service, whose forces were involved in the attack, said there were at least a dozen warplanes and Pantsir missile defence systems at the airfield when the attack took place.

The airfield also housed a training centre for operators of drones that Russia uses to target Ukraine, the source said, adding that the strikes had "inflicted serious damage to the equipment of the occupiers".

The SBU source said that Ukraine used drones which "overwhelmed Russian air defenses" and then launched Neptune cruise missiles.

"The occupiers cannot feel safe in the occupied peninsula," the source added.

Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv has vowed to take back the peninsula.