2024-09-20 06:15:07
Moscow: Ukraine carried out large-scale drone attacks in Russia’s Tver region on Wednesday. These attacks were of a very high level, targeting Russia’s missile and weapons depots. The city has been forced to evacuate after the fire that broke out after the attacks. Pictures on social media show high flames of fire, which spread panic in the area. Several explosions have taken place across a lake 380 km west of Moscow. NASA’s satellite has seen fireballs coming out of an area of about 14 square kilometers at the site in the early hours. At the same time, earthquake monitoring stations considered it a small earthquake in the area. The situation has not been clarified by Russia, but it is believed that its weapons depot has come under attack.
Pro-Russian military blogger Yuri Podolyaka reported that Ukraine attacked an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets. Russian state media had reported that there was a large arsenal of conventional weapons at the blast site. Tver Governor Igor Rudenya said the Ukrainian drones had been shot down. However, the attack caused a fire and some residents were being evacuated from the area. A source in Ukraine’s SBU state security service told Reuters that the drone attack destroyed a warehouse storing missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammunition.
Big explosion near Russian arsenal
According to George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, the size of the main explosion shown in unverified social media videos was consistent with a 200-240 ton high blast. Many war bloggers questioned how a drone could have caused such a large explosion in a place where security is extremely tight. According to a 2018 RIA state news agency report, Russia was building an arsenal to store missiles, ammunition and explosives in the 1,000-year-old town of Toropets, which has a population of just over 11,000. Then-Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov told RIA in 2018 that the facility could protect the weapons from missiles and even a small nuclear attack.
Russia said, without mentioning the tower, that its air defence units had destroyed 54 drones launched against five Russian regions overnight. Ukraine said it had shot down 46 of the 52 drones launched by Moscow overnight and that Russia had used three guided air missiles that missed their targets.
Ukraine has boosted its domestic drone production over the past two years and stepped up attacks on Russian territory. Ukraine’s biggest drone attack to date targeted the Russian capital in September, killing at least one person and disrupting flights at Moscow’s airports.