Large fires broke out early Monday at two oil depots in the Russian city of Bryansk, less than 100 miles from the border with Ukraine, in a possible act of sabotage by Kiev.
Russian state media said the first fire occurred at a civilian facility in Bryansk with 10,000 tons of fuel, followed by a second fire at a military fuel depot with 5,000 tons.
Bryansk, less than 100 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border, serves as the logistics base for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.
Images posted to Russian social media Monday morning showed columns of smoke rising from facilities in the Russian city.
Military analyst Rob Lee said the footage suggested the fire was “probably” caused by Ukrainian sabotage. “It sounds like something is flying through the air before the explosion. I think it was probably a Ukrainian attack, but we can’t be sure,” Lee said.
“The fact that they were two separate sites not far from the border is important,” Lee said, adding that the fires may have been caused by a Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile, which he said had the range to achieve both goals if deployed near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Lee added that if Ukrainian involvement were confirmed, the strikes were likely carried out to “cut off fuel supplies to the Russian military.”
In a statement on its website, Russia’s Emergencies Ministry mentioned only one of the fires, saying a facility owned by oil pipeline company Transneft caught fire at 2 a.m. local time and there was no need to evacuate parts of the city of 400,000.
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Russia’s investigative committee said in a separate statement it had ordered an investigation into the incident. Ukrainian officials have not yet commented on the fire.
Several videos were posted on social media on Monday morning appeared to show the moment of the explosion in one of the oil depots in Bryansk.
According to Baza, a Telegram news channel with ties to Russian security services, the fires were caused by Ukrainian drones.
Russia has repeatedly accused Ukraine of launching strikes on its territory.
Last week Moscow accused Ukrainian helicopters of hitting residential buildings and injuring seven people in Bryansk. In early April, the governor of the Belgorod region, which is also near the Ukrainian border, said two Kiev helicopters fired on a fuel depot there, which Ukraine denies. The Russian Defense Ministry has promised to bomb targets in Kyiv in response to alleged “terror and sabotage” attacks on its territory by Ukraine’s “nationalist regime”.
Russia has suffered a spate of major fires at state facilities across the country in recent weeks.
On Friday, 17 people were killed when a major fire broke out at a key Russian defense research institute in Tver, northwest of Moscow. On the same day, a large chemical plant caught fire not far from Moscow. Russia, where accidental fires are common due to dilapidated infrastructure, has blamed the Tver fire on aging wiring.