Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of enemy drone attacks on their territories overnight.
London:
A massive Ukrainian drone strike on Russia caused an earthquake-sized explosion at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of a nearby city, war bloggers and some media reported.
Unverified videos and images on social media showed a huge ball of flames shooting high into the night sky and multiple explosions thundering over a lake about 240 miles (380 km) west of Moscow.
NASA satellites picked up intense heat sources emanating from an area of about 14 square kilometers (5 square miles) at the site in the early hours, and earthquake monitoring stations picked up what sensors thought was a small earthquake in the area.
“The enemy has hit an ammunition depot near Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
“Everything that can burn is already burning there (and exploding).”
There was no information about casualties.
Russian state media have reported in the past that the site of the explosions contained a large arsenal of conventional weapons. State media, now subject to military censorship laws, were quiet in their reporting on Wednesday.
Igor Rudenya, the governor of the Tver region, said Ukrainian drones had been shot down, a fire had broken out and some residents had been evacuated. He didn’t say what was burning.
One woman told Reuters that members of her family had been evacuated from Toropets.
“There was a fire with explosions,” the woman said, giving only her first name: Irina.
A source at Ukraine’s state security service SBU told Reuters that the drone strike destroyed a warehouse of missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammunition. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian government.
Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of enemy drone attacks on their territories overnight, with Russian forces advancing in eastern Ukraine.
BIG EXPLOSION
According to George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, the size of the main blast shown in the unverified social media video was equivalent to a detonation of 200 to 240 tons of explosives.
A Toropets chatroom on Russian social media site VK was flooded with messages of support from other parts of the country and offers of help to people fleeing the city.
Some people wondered whether buildings at certain addresses were still standing.
“Folks, does anyone know what happened to Kudino village??? They told me there is nothing left of our house,” one woman wrote.
Another woman replied: “It’s horror out there.” Kudino is a village 4.5 km northeast of Toropets.
Some war bloggers wondered how drones could cause such large explosions in what was considered a highly fortified facility.
According to a 2018 report by state news agency RIA, Russia was building an arsenal to store missiles, ammunition and explosives in Toropets, a thousand-year-old city with just over 11,000 inhabitants.
Dmitry Bulgakov, then deputy defense minister, told RIA in 2018 that the facility could defend weapons against missiles and even a small nuclear attack. Bulgakov was arrested earlier this year on corruption charges. He denies the accusations.
“It (the concrete facilities) ensures their reliable and safe storage, protects them from air and missile attacks and even from the harmful factors of a nuclear explosion,” RIA quoted Bulgakov as saying at the time.
Some Russians in chat groups expressed their anger.
“Why wasn’t the ammunition underground?! What are you doing???? In Kudino houses were blown away! Why is the forest burning and no one is there… what kind of negligence is this!!!!” a woman posted.
Russia reported that its air defense units had destroyed 54 drones launched against five Russian regions overnight, without naming Tver. Ukraine said it had shot down 46 of 52 drones launched by Moscow and that Russia had used three guided-air missiles that failed to reach their targets.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)