Loud explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday, in what may represent an escalation of the war in Ukraine. At least one person was killed and others were injured, according to authorities.
The Russian Defense Ministry denied that the Saki base on the Black Sea had been hit, saying munitions had exploded there. However, there was speculation on Ukrainian social media that she had been hit by long-range Ukrainian missiles.
Videos posted on social media showed sunbathers on a nearby beach fleeing as huge flames and plumes of smoke rose over the horizon from multiple locations, accompanied by loud bangs. The Crimea Today News reported on Telegram that witnesses reported a fire on a runway and damage to nearby houses as a result of dozens of explosions.
The Russian state news agency Tass reported that an unnamed ministerial source said the main cause of the explosions appeared to be a “violation of fire safety requirements.” The ministry said no warplanes were damaged.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry sarcastically posted on Facebook that “Ukrainian Defense Ministry cannot establish the cause of the fire, but once again reiterates the fire safety regulations and the ban on smoking in unspecified places.”
During the war, Russia has reported numerous fires and explosions at ammunition depots on its territory near the Ukrainian border, attributing some of them to Ukrainian attacks. Ukrainian authorities have not commented on these incidents.
If Ukrainian forces were responsible for the explosions at the airbase, that would mark the first known major attack on a Russian military site on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. A smaller explosion last month at the barracks of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, in the port of Sevastopol, in Crimea, was attributed to Ukrainian saboteurs who used a drone.
Russian warplanes have used the Saki base to attack parts of southern Ukraine at short notice.
Crimean regional government chief Sergei Aksyonov said ambulances and medical helicopters had been dispatched to the base and the area had been cordoned off within a 5-kilometre (3-mile) radius.
One person was killed, Aksyonov said. Crimean health authorities said nine people were injured, one of whom remains hospitalized. Others were treated for cuts caused by glass shards and were released.
Russian officials have long warned Ukraine that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including attacks on “decision-making centers” in kyiv.
For his part, the President of Ukraine promised to recapture Crimea from Russia.
“This Russian war against Ukraine and against the whole of free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea: its liberation,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his late-night video address on Tuesday. “Today it is impossible to say when this will happen. But we are constantly adding the necessary components to the formula for the liberation of Crimea,” he stated.
Earlier Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported that at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 wounded by Russian strikes in 24 hours, including an attack not far from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
The Russians fired more than 120 rockets at the city of Nikopol, which lies across the Dnipro River from the nuclear plant, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. Several apartment buildings and industrial centers were damaged, he added.
Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of attacking the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, fueling fears of catastrophe.