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Smoke rises after an explosion in the village of Mayskoye in the Dzhankoi district, Crimea. Photo: Reuters

Explosions refocus Ukraine war on Russian-annexed Crimea as Vladimir Putin lashes US

  • An ammunition depot exploded in Crimea, the latest blasts to rock the peninsula occupied by Russian forces
  • Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of seeking to prolong the conflict in Ukraine
Ukraine war
Agencies

The world’s attention on Russia’s war in Ukraine on Tuesday turned anew to the Russia-annexed occupied Crimean Peninsula, where a mysterious ammunition storage fire and explosions was the second incident in a week to shake Moscow’s sensitivities.

The Russian Defence Ministry said there were no serious casualties from the blasts in the northern Crimean village of Mayskoye, state-owned news agency RIA reported, though two people were injured. The agency also reported a fire at a transformer substation 20km away.

The ministry said a fire erupted at a “site for temporary storage of ammunition of one of the military units”.

“As a result of the fire, the stored ammunition detonated,” the ministry said, adding that it wasn’t immediately clear what caused the fire.

The Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move not recognised by most countries, is the base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and popular in the summer as a holiday resort.

Last week, blasts at a military airbase in the city of Novofedorivka, on Crimea’s western coast, caused extensive damage and destroyed several Russian warplanes.

Russians pound Ukraine’s Donetsk as Kremlin mobilises for long war

Moscow called that an accident, though simultaneous blasts at several parts of the base had left craters visible from space.

Ukrainian officials at the time stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for the explosions, while mocking Russia’s explanation that a careless smoker might have caused ammunition at the Saki airbase to catch fire and blow up.

Analysts also said that explanation doesn’t make sense and that the Ukrainians could have used anti-ship missiles to strike the base.

“A reminder: Crimea of normal country is about the Black Sea, mountains, recreation and tourism, but Crimea occupied by Russians is about warehouses explosions and high risk of death for invaders and thieves,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted after Tuesday’s reported blasts in Mayskoye.

Russia has used Crimea to reinforce its troops fighting in what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine with military hardware.

Kyiv aims to disrupt Russian supply lines ahead of a planned Ukrainian counter-attack. Mayskoye is on the main railway line linking Crimea with Russia, and used to supply Russian forces in southern Ukraine.

Before and after last week’s attack on Saki airbase in Novofedorivka, Crimea. Photos: Maxar Technologies

Like the airbase, it is out of the range of the main rockets Western countries acknowledge providing Ukraine so far, suggesting that if the explosions were some form of attack, Kyiv has acquired capability to strike deeper into Russian territory.

The nearly six-month conflict has caused millions to flee, killed thousands, and deepened a geopolitical rift between Moscow and the West.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the United States of seeking to prolong the conflict in Ukraine and of fuelling conflicts elsewhere in the world, including with the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.

“The situation in Ukraine shows that the US is trying to prolong this conflict. And they act in exactly the same way, fuelling the potential for conflict in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” Putin said in televised remarks, addressing the opening ceremony of a security conference in Moscow via video link.

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“The American adventure in relation to Taiwan is not just a trip of an individual irresponsible politician, but part of a purposeful, conscious US strategy to destabilise and make chaotic the situation in the region and the world,” he added.

He said the visit was a “brazen demonstration of disrespect for the sovereignty of other countries and for its (Washington’s) international obligations”.

“We see this as a carefully planned provocation,” Putin said.

Speaking at the security conference, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Ukrainian military operations were being planned by the United States and Britain, and that Nato had increased its troop deployment in Eastern and Central Europe “several times over”.

He also said that Moscow does not plan to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

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Smoke billows near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after fresh round of shelling in Russia-Ukraine war

Smoke billows near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant after fresh round of shelling in Russia-Ukraine war

“From a military point of view, there is no need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine to achieve the set goals,” Shoigu said.

“The main purpose of Russian nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack,” he added.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, the sides reported no major changes to positions.

Ukraine reported continued Russian shelling and rocket attacks in the Donbas eastern area, and success in repelling attempted Russian advances near the Lysychansk oil refinery in the Luhansk region of the Donbas.

‘Risk of nuclear catastrophe’ as Ukraine, Russia continue to trade blame

Ukraine on Monday said it had struck a base used by a Russian paramilitary group as well as a bridge near the occupied city of Melitopol.

Sergiy Gaiday, governor of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, said the base of the Wagner Group was “destroyed by a precision strike”.

Little is known about the shadowy paramilitary group which is believed to be linked to Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is himself a close associate of Putin.

The presence of Wagner paramilitaries has been documented in Libya, Mali and Syria, among many other countries – particularly in Africa.

Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse

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