Massive explosions and fires ripped through a military depot in Russian-annexed Crimea on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people, the second time in recent days that the focus of Ukraine’s war has shifted to the peninsula. Russia blamed the explosions at an ammunition storage facility in Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage” without naming the perpetrators. As with last week’s explosions, they have led to speculation that Ukraine may be behind the attack on the peninsula, which Russia has controlled since 2014. Separately, Russian business newspaper Kommersant cited local residents who reported plumes of black smoke also rising above an air base in Gvardeyskoye, Crimea. Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for any of the fires or explosions, including last week at another airbase that destroyed nine Russian planes. If Ukrainian forces were, in fact, responsible for any of the blasts, they would represent a major escalation of the war. Crimea is of enormous strategic and symbolic importance to Russia and Ukraine. The Kremlin’s demand that Kyiv recognize the peninsula as part of Russia was one of its key conditions for an end to the fighting, while Ukraine has pledged to expel the Russians from the peninsula and all other occupied territories. Videos posted on social media showed thick smoke rising above raging flames in Mayskoye and a series of explosions could be heard in the background. The Russian Defense Ministry said the warehouse fires damaged a power plant, power lines, railway lines and some apartment buildings. It said in a statement that “there were no serious injuries.” Earlier, Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti reported a fire at a transformer substation after “a loud noise” in what appeared to be the result of explosions in the warehouse. The Dzhankoi region, where the explosions occurred, is in the north of the peninsula, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Russian-controlled Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Kyiv has recently carried out a series of attacks on various locations in the region, targeting Russian military supply routes there and ammunition depots. Last week’s explosions at the Saki air base in Crimea sent sunbathers on nearby beaches fleeing as huge flames and plumes of smoke rose to the horizon. Ukrainian officials stressed Tuesday that Crimea — which is a popular destination for Russian tourists — will not be spared the ravages of war experienced across Ukraine. Rather than a travel destination, “Russian-occupied Crimea is all about warehouse explosions and high risk of death for intruders and thieves,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter, though he did not claim any Ukrainian responsibility for the explosions. . Crimean regional leader Sergei Aksionov said two people were injured and more than 3,000 were evacuated from the villages of Mayskoye and Azovskoye near Dzhankoi after the explosions at an ammunition depot. Because the explosions damaged railway lines, some trains in northern Crimea were diverted to other lines. The Russian military blamed last week’s explosions at the Saki air base on an accidental munitions explosion there, but it appeared to be the result of a Ukrainian attack. Ukrainian officials at the time did not publicly claim responsibility for the blasts, scoffing at Russia’s explanation that a careless smoker may have set the ammunition on fire. Analysts also said the explanation made no sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to hit the base. A British Ministry of Defense intelligence briefing said Russian Black Sea Fleet vessels “continue to pursue a highly defensive posture” in the waters off Crimea, with ships barely out of sight of the coastline. Russia has already lost its flagship Moskva in the Black Sea, and last month the Ukrainian military recaptured the strategic outpost of Snake Island off Ukraine’s southwest coast. It is vital to securing sea lanes from Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port. “The limited effectiveness of the Russian fleet undermines Russia’s overall invasion strategy,” the British statement said. “This means Ukraine can divert resources to push Russian ground forces elsewhere.” Meanwhile, in Donbas, which has been the focus of fighting in recent months, one civilian was killed by Russian shelling and two others were wounded, according to the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kirilenko. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, one civilian was killed and nine others wounded by Russian shelling, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. He added that the overnight attack on the city was “one of the most massive shelling of Kharkiv in recent days”. Officials in the central Dniprotpetrovsk region also reported shelling of the Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih regions. Amid the explosions and shelling, some good news emerged from the region, with a United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain heading for the Horn of Africa. It is the first mission of its kind and the United Nations World Food Program called it “another important milestone” in a plan to help countries facing famine. Ukraine and Russia reached an agreement with Turkey in July to resume Black Sea grain deliveries, addressing a major export disruption since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The worst drought in four decades in the Horn of Africa has led to thousands of people across the region dying of starvation or disease this year. This deal not only protects ships exporting Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, but also assures Russia that its food and fertilizer will not face sanctions, protecting one of the pillars of its economy and helping to ease concerns from insurers and banks.
