A Ukrainian drone attack on a large Russian weapons depot caused a blast that was picked up by earthquake monitoring stations, in one of the biggest strikes on Moscow’s military arsenal since the war began.
Pro-Russian military bloggers said Ukraine struck an arsenal for the storage of missiles, ammunition and explosives in Toropets, a historic town more than 300 miles north of Ukraine and about 230 miles west of Moscow.
Videos and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame rising high into the night sky and detonations thundering across a lake, in a region not far from the border with Belarus.
The strike was part of a broader Ukrainian drone campaign targeting Russian oil refineries, power plants, airfields and military factories, and highlights Kyiv’s enhanced long-range drone capabilities.
Earthquake monitoring stations registered what sensors thought was a minor earthquake in the area.
Ukrainian Pravda reported that the operation was conducted by the Ukrainian security service together with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine and the Special Operations Force. An unnamed official at the Ukrainian security service said the weapons warehouse contained long-range Russian missiles and guided bombs known as KABs.
Russia’s defence ministry said 54 Ukrainian drones targeted five western Russian regions overnight and that all of them were destroyed.
But in a tacit admission of the strike, Igor Rudenya, the governor of Russia’s Tver region, said firefighters there were trying to contain a fire and that some residents were being evacuated from their homes.
Rudenya said wreckage from a destroyed Ukrainian drone had sparked a fire, but did not say what was burning.
Russian state media reported that nurseries and schools in the Zapadnodvinsk district, bordering the Toropetsk district in the Tver region, were closed on Wednesday.
Some pro-war Russian war bloggers expressed anger over how Ukrainian drones could trigger such large explosions at what was thought to be a highly fortified facility.
In a scathing statement on Telegram, Anastasia Kashevarova, a well-connected and influential blogger, blamed the Russian defence ministry and authorities for allowing Ukraine to “blow up a massive military depot”.
She wrote: “How many more mistakes can they make … It is the third year of the special military operation but the idiocy continues.”
Ukraine’s strike using domestically produced drones comes amid Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s ongoing efforts to persuade his allies to permit Kyiv to use western-supplied missiles against airbases and weapons dumps on Russian territory, to curb Moscow’s steady advances in eastern Ukraine.
Related: ‘If they don’t die, our infantry will’: Ukraine’s pivotal battle for Donetsk
Kyiv’s allies, including the US and Britain, are discussing whether to authorise Kyiv to strike deep inside Russian territory using missiles including the long-range US Atacms and Anglo-French Storm Shadows, known in France as Scalp.
The Kremlin has said such a move would imply direct western involvement in the conflict and would result in consequences, with some officials close to Vladimir Putin suggesting Moscow could respond with nuclear weapons.
Since the start of this year, Russian forces have made continuous advances in eastern Ukraine, steadily approaching the key city of Pokrovsk.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s military claimed to have captured the town of Ukrainsk, which lies in between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, another Ukrainian military stronghold.
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