CNN –
A series of explosions rocked a Russian ammunition dump in occupied Crimea on Wednesday, forcing thousands of residents in surrounding areas to flee and prompting officials there to divert traffic off a local highway.
Footage showed smoke and flames rolling over the site near Stary Krym in Crimea’s Kirorvsky District, where explosions could still be heard six hours after the initial blast. According to Russian state media, the head of Crimea’s parliament said it could take two days for the fire to be fully extinguished.
The cause of the explosions has not yet been confirmed. Russian-backed Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov told Telegram that “a fire broke out at a military training area.” Askenov said residents of four nearby villages – more than 2,000 people – were being evacuated.
Portal
Smoke and flames billow over a military training area after an explosion in Crimea’s Kirovske district on July 19, 2023.
The blasts are the latest in a series of recent incidents in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula that Russia illegally seized in 2014. On Monday, Ukraine claimed responsibility for an attack that damaged part of the bridge connecting Crimea to Russia, a vital supply line for Russia’s Moscow invasion and a personal project for President Vladimir Putin.
Kiev has not commented on Wednesday’s explosions at the training ground in Crimea. Pro-Russian channel Gray Zone Telegram claimed a Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile hit the depot, which could not be immediately confirmed, while a Ukrainian rebel group in Crimea called Atesh cheered the fire but said it was not in favor responsible.
Putin’s spokesman said he was briefed on the explosions at the ammunition dump.
Russia has launched a brutal two-day airstrike on the strategic port city of Odessa in southern Ukraine in retaliation for Ukraine’s attack on the bridge, damaging vital infrastructure and injuring civilians.
The overnight barrage by the Kremlin included Kalibr, Kh-22 and Oniks cruise missiles and Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 UAVs, the Ukrainian Air Force said, adding that 14 cruise missiles and 23 drones were destroyed in the process.
CNN journalists in Odessa heard heavy bombardment early Wednesday local time.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed it had attacked military and fuel facilities in Odessa with “highly accurate sea and airborne weapons.”
Earlier, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had deliberately launched attacks on vital “grain-dealing infrastructure” after the Kremlin on Monday pulled out of a deal that allowed grain exports by sea from Ukrainian ports that otherwise would would have been blocked by Russia.
He said it was Russia’s “biggest” attempt to “inflict pain on Odesa” since the invasion began in February 2022, adding that about “a million tons of food” were stored in the ports attacked on Wednesday.
“Everyone is affected by this Russian terror,” added the Ukrainian leader.
Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry said it would take at least a year to fully recover from damage that hit grain export infrastructure in Odessa and the nearby port of Chornomorsk.
“This is a terrorist attack not only against Ukraine, but against the whole world. The country’s food security is again at risk. “Humanity is being held hostage by a terrorist country that is blackmailing the world with hunger,” Ukraine’s Agriculture Minister Mykola Solskyi said in a statement Wednesday.
Press Service of the President of Ukraine/Portal
A firefighter works at a storage site hit in Russian missile and drone strikes in Odessa, southern Ukraine, on Wednesday.
Odessa Mayor Hennadii Trukhanov called the bombing “one of the most terrible nights” of the war.
“We don’t recall such an attack since the start of a full-scale invasion,” he said on Facebook.
No casualties were reported. But the city was rocked by explosions and several people were injured by a downed Russian missile, including a nine-year-old boy, officials said.
Further east, two civilians were killed and seven others wounded by Ukrainian shelling in parts of separatist-controlled areas of the eastern Donetsk region, according to a Russian-backed official.
Several houses, two schools and a hospital were damaged, the head of the separatist, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Puschilin, said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s attack on the Crimean Bridge was a logistical and symbolic blow to Moscow’s stalled military offensive. The bridge is an important artery for supplying the peninsula with both daily necessities and supplies for the military, as well as fuel and goods for the civilian population.
The $3.7 billion, 12-mile corridor is a vital artery for supplying the peninsula with both daily necessities and supplies for the Russian military, as well as fuel and goods for the civilian population.
The attack was a joint operation by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the Ukrainian Naval Forces, an SBU official told CNN. The attack killed a couple and injured their daughter.