A week after an apparent Ukrainian attack on a Russian military base in occupied Crimea, an arms store on another depot has been hit by a series of explosions. Russian officials said a fire triggered the blasts in the Dzhankoi area – before later blaming “sabotage”.
A separate fire broke out at power substation and a railway was damaged. A string of blasts last week destroyed Russian warplanes at a Black Sea base on the Crimean coast.
Ukraine has never publicly admitted that attack – but presidential office adviser Mykhailo Podolyak described the latest incident as “demilitarisation in action”, indicating that the explosions were not accidental.
A Crimean Tatar leader, Refat Chubarov, called the explosions a “hit” that could be heard “far across the steppe”.
Russia’s defence ministry said the fire broke out at a temporary ammunition storage site near the village of Maiske (or Mayskoye in Russian) and that the cause was being investigated.
The defence ministry in Moscow said there had been no “serious” casualties, but Russian-appointed regional head Sergei Aksyonov visited the site and said 2,000 people had been moved from a nearby village and two people had been wounded.
Credit: bbc.com
