Ukraine denies airstrikes on fuel depot in Russia
Moscow has claimed that two Ukrainian helicopters swooped on a fuel storage facility in Russia, firing a salvo of missiles and causing a fire that sent smoke billowing into the sky.
Russia’s defence ministry alleged that the Mi-24s had carried out the attack on the depot near the Russian city of Belgorod, 25 miles from the Ukrainian border, after flying into the country at an extremely low altitude.
By flying low and under cover of darkness, the helicopters would avoid detection and engagement by Russian air defences around the city. Local officials said that at least two people had been injured in the strike, which caused a fire that raged for hours.
The Ukrainian defence ministry would not initially confirm nor deny responsibility for the attack. A Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman said that Ukraine was “conducting defensive operations” to repel Russia’s invasion, adding that did not mean it had to take responsibility for “calculations, catastrophes and all developments” taking place in Russia.
Later in the day, however, Ukraine’s top security official denied that Kyiv was behind the strike, raising questions as to whether it was a false-flag attack. Oleksiy Danilov, the Ukrainian security council secretary, said: “For some reason they say that we did it, but according to our information this does not correspond to reality.”
If Ukraine is confirmed as being behind the attack, it would mark the first such airstrike on Russian soil during the war, although Ukraine has fired missiles and artillery shells over the frontier.
Russia released a video of the plant ablaze and said that the incident would not help peace talks, which continued remotely on Friday. In Ukraine, Kyiv’s forces continued their counterattack, with the mayor of Bucha, near the capital, claiming that Ukrainian forces had recaptured the town.
“March 31 will go down in the history of our town . . . as the day of its liberation from Russian [forces],” Anatolii Fedoruk said in a video that appeared to have been filmed outside Bucha’s town hall.
Nathan Ruser, a researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that every day for the past week Ukraine had retaken more territory than it had lost.
Michael Horowitz, a security analyst, said that in recent hours Ukraine had made “some of the most significant gains to date”, in part due to Russia withdrawing and focusing on the east, but also because of Ukraine’s ability to carry out offensive operations.
“We are seeing some of the biggest changes in territory since the invasion and of course this is in Ukraine’s favour,” he said.
In another blow for Moscow, Russian troops were forced into a humiliating retreat from an airport considered key to their success in the invasion after weeks of intense clashes.
Hostomel airport, just northwest of Kyiv, was a priority target for Russian paratroopers in the first hours of the conflict in late February. The plan was to use the base to bring troops and supplies directly to the capital. However, they were met with fierce resistance and the airfield has exchanged hands several times since.
On Thursday night a Pentagon official said: “We believe that [the Russians] have very likely abandoned Hostomel airfield.”
Justin Crump, a military analyst at Sibylline, an intelligence consultancy, said: “The Russian airborne forces lost many men in assaults here and so departing from this significant location underscores the failure of Russia’s initial hopes and plans against Kyiv.”
A Pentagon official said that Russia’s 40-mile convoy of vehicles north of Kyiv may have moved because it had failed to accomplish its mission. The convoy was originally likened to a “medieval siege train” targeting the city.
Franz-Stefan Gady, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that this pointed to Russian forces retiring to more defensible positions and moving some troops across the border. Ben Barry, a senior fellow for land warfare at the institute, said that he would expect Russia to avoid creating more large convoys that could be easily detected in future and instead would deploy smaller ones to resupply forward forces.
Bob Seely, a conservative MP and Russia expert, said that the Kremlin’s losses in personnel and kit were “extremely serious”, but he cautioned that “there is still a long way to go. With a new conscript army and mercenaries coming online, the Ukrainians will have to repeat their successes again this spring and summer.”
In the port city of Mariupol, hopes of an evacuation faded after the International Committee of the Red Cross said that its “effort has been and remains extremely complex”. It added: “If and when safe passage happens, our role as a neutral intermediary will be to lead the convoy from Mariupol to another city in Ukraine.”
Russia is running out of weapons and has a “huge appetite” to take Ukrainian factories that previously supplied key components for its cruise missiles and tanks, military sources believe (Larisa Brown writes).
Military procurement in Moscow is “on the verge of failure” due to sanctions, according to the Ukrainian main intelligence directorate. It claimed that Russia cannot produce modern weapons and equipment without foreign electronics. A senior British defence source said: “They [The Russians] are running out of kit.”
Ukrainian companies previously supplied the engines for Russia’s cruise missiles and parts for tanks, according to a memo circulated in the Ministry of Defence in London. It said Russia “cannot build any more Kh-55 cruise missiles to replace the stocks”. Helicopter, ship and cruise missile engines, along with a “serious amount” of fighter engine and ground-to-air missile components were originally made in Ukraine.
Before the invasion of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine supplied parts for as many as 186 types of Russian military equipment. In the years since, Moscow was forced to try to produce the technology on its own or to buy it from elsewhere.
There are several defence manufacturers in eastern Ukraine — in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and in Izyum, where fighting is fierce.