Blasts at site in Crimea are ‘sabotage’
RUSSIA said yesterday that massive explosions at a military facility on the Kremlin-controlled Crimean peninsula in Ukraine that also damaged electrical power infrastructure were the result of “sabotage”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile said the US was trying to drag out the conflict, accusing Washington of putting Ukrainians in the firing line and supplying Kyiv with heavy weapons. Huge fireballs erupted at the site in Crimea early yesterday where ammunition was temporarily being stored.
The blasts – caused by a fire that led ammunition to detonate – damaged civilian infrastructure, “including power lines, a power plant, a railway track” and residential buildings, the ministry said.
The explosions come one week after at least one person was killed and several more were wounded in similar explosions at a Russian military airbase in Crimea. Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for either of the incidents in Crimea, but senior officials and the military have implied Ukrainian involvement.
Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said the explosions had likely damaged infrastructure supplying power generated at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to Crimea.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded accusations over a series of military strikes this month on the Zaporizhzhia, Europe’s largest nuclear plant in southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that a “catastrophe” at the Russian-controlled facility would
threaten the whole of Europe.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and has used the Black Sea region as a staging ground for its invasion. Moscow ordered the invasion of Ukraine in February, anticipating little military resistance and hoping for a quick takeover that would topple the government in Kyiv.
But after failing to capture the capital, Russia’s military instead has become entrenched in a protracted war with the sprawling front line in the east and south of the country.
“The situation in Ukraine shows that the US is trying to prolong this conflict,” Putin said yesterday, lashing out at the US for supplying weapons to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, in the eastern Donbas region, which has seen most of the fighting, Ukraine said Russia had
launched a “massive” offensive from an oil refinery in Lysychansk.
The first Un-chartered vessel laden carrying 23 000 tons of wheat meanwhile left Ukraine for Africa. The MV Brave Commander was able to leave after a deal agreed last month lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports.
The prime minister of the formerly Soviet-ruled Estonia, said yesterday her government had decided to remove all Soviet-era monuments in the country. The move follows trends in Poland and Ukraine, which began tearing down statues of Soviet leaders in earnest after Russia-backed separatists wrested control of swathes of the east in 2014.
Finland, meanwhile, plans to limit Russian tourist visas to 10% of current volumes next month, due to discontent over Russian tourism amid the war in Ukraine.