Explosions and fires destroyed a munitions depot in Russia-annexed Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
Russia blamed an “act of sabotage” for the explosions in the village of Maiskoye, without naming the perpetrators.
Separately, the Russian business daily Kommersant quoted local residents as saying plumes of black smoke were also rising over an airbase in Gvardeyskoye, Crimea.
Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the blasts, including those that destroyed nine Russian planes at another airbase in Crimea last week. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has used it to launch attacks against the country in the war that began almost six months ago.
In another reported act of sabotage, Russia’s Tass news agency quoted the FSB as saying that Ukrainian activists blew up six electricity transmission lines in Russia’s Kursk region near Ukraine earlier this month.
If Ukrainian forces were behind the blasts in Crimea, the war would escalate significantly. Such attacks may also indicate that Ukrainian agents are capable of penetrating deep into Russian-held territory and complementing attempts to weaken Moscow’s front-line forces.
“Honestly, it’s changing the frontline across the board,” Marine Corps intelligence officer Hal Kempfer told CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata after last week’s attack. “If they can keep the momentum going, if they can keep hitting deep, if they can keep making gains in the Kherson area, they can potentially push all the way down that south flank.”
This strike drew a swift, brutal response from Russia. President Vladimir Putin’s forces fought back with increased shelling and rocket attacks on towns and villages across southern Ukraine.
The Kremlin has demanded that Kyiv recognize Crimea as part of Russia as a condition for ending the fighting, while Ukraine has vowed to evict Moscow’s forces from the Black Sea peninsula.
This still image from a UGC video captured with a smartphone and published on the ESN platform on August 16, 2022 shows fire and smoke rising from an ammunition depot in Crimea early on August 16, 2022. MARIE-LAURE MESSANA/ESN/AFP via Getty Images
Videos posted on social media showed thick plumes of smoke billowing over blazing flames in Maiskoye, and a series of explosions were heard. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the fires damaged a power plant, power lines, railroad tracks and apartment buildings.
“We came out to check and saw plumes of smoke coming from the cowshed where the military camps are located,” said local resident Maksim Moldovskiy. “We stayed there until about 7-8 in the morning. Everything exploded – lightning, splinters, debris falling on us. Then the rescue workers came and said they would all evacuate.”
Crimea regional leader Sergei Aksyonov said two people were injured and more than 3,000 were evacuated from two villages.
“The detonations are quite powerful. Munitions are scattered all over the ground,” he said, adding that several houses had burned down.
Crimea is a popular summer destination for Russian tourists, and last week’s explosions at Crimea’s Saki airbase sent sunbathers to the beaches fleeing as flames and columns of smoke rose over the horizon.
Ukrainian officials warned Tuesday that Crimea would not be spared the ravages of war.
“Russian-occupied Crimea is not about a tourist destination, it’s about warehouse explosions and a high risk of death for intruders and thieves,” Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
Smoke rises in the distance from Saky beach on Russia’s occupied Crimea peninsula in Ukraine after explosions rocked a Russian military airfield near Novofedorivka in Crimea on August 9, 2022. UGC via AP
Russia blamed an accidental detonation of munitions for last week’s blasts, but satellite photos and other evidence — including the scattered blast sites — pointed to a Ukrainian attack, possibly with anti-ship missiles, military analysts said.
The British Ministry of Defense said in an intelligence update that ships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet are in an “extremely defensive posture” in the waters off Crimea, with the ships hardly venturing out of sight of the coast. Russia’s flagship Moskva sank in the Black Sea in April, and last month Ukrainian forces recaptured the strategic Snake Island.
The “limited effectiveness of the Russian fleet undermines Russia’s entire invasion strategy,” the British said. “This means Ukraine can divert resources to pressure Russian ground forces elsewhere.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Western allies not only supplied Ukraine with weapons, but also provided detailed information and training to help Ukraine deal with weapons that can penetrate deep into occupied territory.
“Western intelligence agencies have not only provided target coordinates for launching strikes, but Western specialists have also monitored the entry of this data into weapon systems,” Shoigu said.
Meanwhile, in Donbass, the industrial area in the east that has been the focus of fighting in recent months, one civilian was killed and two others wounded in Russian shelling, according to Ukrainian regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
In Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine, one civilian was killed and nine others wounded by Russian shelling, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. He said the night’s attack was “one of the most massive bombing raids on Kharkiv in recent days.”
Good news came from the region: a United Nations-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian grain was making its way to the famine-stricken Horn of Africa with the first shipment of aid of the war. The shipment was made possible by an internationally brokered deal to free grain trapped by fighting in Ukrainian ports.
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