Kyiv, Ukraine –
Massive explosions and fires ripped through a military depot in Russian-annexed Crimea on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people, the second time in recent days that the focus of Ukraine’s war has turned to the peninsula. .
Russia blamed the explosions at an ammunition storage facility in Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage” without naming the perpetrators. As with last week’s explosions, they sparked speculation Ukraine could be behind the attack on the peninsula, which Russia has controlled since 2014.
Separately, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant quoted local residents as saying plumes of black smoke also rose above an air base in Crimea’s Gvardeyskoye.
Ukraine has stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for any of the fires or explosions, including last week’s at another airbase that destroyed nine Russian planes. If Ukrainian forces were, in fact, responsible for any of the explosions, it would represent a significant escalation in the war.
Crimea is of great strategic and symbolic importance to Russia and Ukraine. The Kremlin’s demand that Kyiv recognize the peninsula as part of Russia has been one of its key conditions for ending the fighting, while Ukraine has promised to expel the Russians from the peninsula and all other occupied territories.
Videos posted on social media showed thick plumes of smoke rising above the raging flames in Mayskoye, and a series of explosions could be heard in the background. The Russian Defense Ministry said the fires at the warehouse caused damage to a power plant, power lines, railway tracks and some apartment buildings. It said in a statement that “there were no serious injuries.”
Earlier, Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported a fire at a transformer substation after “a heavy blow” in what appeared to be the result of explosions at the warehouse.
The Dzhankoi district, where the blasts occurred, is in the north of the peninsula, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russian-controlled Kherson region of southern Ukraine. Kyiv has recently mounted a series of attacks at various sites in the region, targeting supply routes for the Russian military there and ammunition depots.
Last week’s explosions at Crimea’s Saki airbase sent beachgoers fleeing from nearby beaches as huge flames and plumes of smoke rose over the horizon. Ukrainian officials stressed Tuesday that Crimea, which is a popular destination for Russian tourists, will not be spared the ravages of war experienced throughout Ukraine.
Rather than a travel destination, “Russian-occupied Crimea is about warehouse explosions and a high risk of death for invaders and thieves,” Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter, though he did not take any responsibility for it. Ukraine for the explosions.
Crimean regional leader Sergei Aksyonov said two people were injured and more than 3,000 were evacuated from the Mayskoye and Azovskoye villages near Dzhankoi following the ammunition depot explosions.
Because the explosions damaged railway tracks, some trains in northern Crimea were diverted to other lines.
The Russian military blamed last week’s explosions at Saki air base on an accidental detonation of munitions there, but it appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack.
Ukrainian officials at the time stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while scoffing at Russia’s explanation that a careless smoker could have caused the ammunition to catch fire. Analysts also said that the explanation does not make sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to attack the base.
An intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defense said ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet “continue to take an extremely defensive posture” in the waters off Crimea, with ships barely venturing out of sight from shore.
Russia has already lost its flagship Moskva in the Black Sea and last month the Ukrainian military retook the strategic outpost of Snake Island off Ukraine’s southwestern coast. It is vital to secure sea routes from Odessa, the largest port in Ukraine.
The “limited effectiveness of the Russian fleet undermines Russia’s overall invasion strategy,” the British statement said. “This means Ukraine can divert resources to put pressure on Russian ground forces elsewhere.”
Meanwhile, in Donbas, which has been the focus of fighting in recent months, one civilian was killed in Russian shelling and two others were wounded, according to the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, one civilian was killed and nine others wounded by Russian shelling, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. He added that the overnight attack on the city was “one of the most massive shelling of Kharkiv in recent days.”
Officials in the central Dniprotpetrovsk region also reported shelling in Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih districts.
Amid the explosions and shelling, some good news emerged from the region: a United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain has left for the Horn of Africa.
It is the first such shipment, and the United Nations World Food Program called it “another important milestone” in a plan to help countries facing famine. Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement with Turkey in July to restart grain deliveries from the Black Sea, addressing the major export disruption that has occurred since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
The worst drought in four decades in the Horn of Africa has caused thousands of people across the region to die of hunger or disease this year.
That deal not only protects ships exporting Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, but also assures Russia that its food and fertilizer will not face sanctions, safeguarding one of the pillars of its economy and helping ease insurers’ concerns. and the banks.