Ukrainian forces struck a major Russian ammunition depot this weekend, causing a massive explosion that was caught on camera.
The strike hit a depot near Tikhoretsk in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region. The Ukrainian military said that 2,000 tons of munitions, including some from North Korea, had arrived at the depot before the strike.
The Russian regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, confirmed that two drones had attacked the site before being engaged by local air defenses. He added that a fire erupted after debris fell from one of the drones, leading to the explosion.
Kondratyev said that 1,200 locals had been evacuated and that there were no known casualties among the area’s residents.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Facebook post that the site is “in the top three largest ammunition storage bases for the occupiers and is one of the key ones in the Russian military’s logistics system.”
The Security Service of Ukraine also hit a munition depot in Oktyabrsky in the western region of Tver, it added.
On Saturday morning, the Russian Ministry of Defense said that Russian forces had intercepted 101 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 18 over Krasnodar Krai and three over Tver.
In a nightly address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces struck depots of Russian tactical missiles and guided aerial bombs with “our capabilities, our weapons.”
He said the strike was conducted “without the means that can be provided by our partners and that can significantly accelerate the end of this war by destroying Russia’s offensive potential.”
Ukraine has been increasingly targeting munitions facilities in Russia in recent weeks.
Its forces struck an ammo facility near Toropets, which is also in Tver, on September 18.
Following that strike, analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said that if Ukraine keeps up similar strikes on ammo sites, it may force the Russian military command “to reorganize and disperse support and logistics systems within Russia to mitigate the impact of such strikes. “
