Drones suspected after strike on Russian depots

Huge explosions tore through two oil storage facilities in a western Russian city yesterday after suspected drone strikes by Ukrainian forces.

The blasts occurred within 15 minutes of each other in Bryansk, about 95 miles from the Ukrainian border, Russian state television said, without speculating on their causes. It stated that one of the explosions was at a fuel tank at a military base, the other at a nearby oil refinery owned by Transneft, the state-controlled oil company.

Video footage showed two massive fires burning. Black smoke could be seen billowing from the military base, while an inferno engulfed the Druzhba refinery. Bryansk is a key transit point for Russian troops heading to Ukraine.

The explosions occurred at about 2am, according to Russia’s emergencies ministry. No casualties were reported. A railway line that transports Russian military equipment to Ukraine was also damaged in a separate blast, according to unconfirmed reports.

Analysts said that Bryansk, home to 400,000 people, was in range of Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles and that the facilities could have been targeted by Kyiv to hinder the supply of fuel to the invaders. The two storage depots contained a combined total of 15,000 tonnes of oil, Russian media said.

Rob Lee, of the department of war studies at King’s College London, said: “It sounds like this was an air or missile strike — most likely a Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile, which has the range to reach both targets if deployed close to the Ukrainian-Russian border.”

However, Baza, a Russian media outlet that has sources within the security services, said that investigators believed the depots were targeted by combat drones, possibly Turkish-produced Bayraktar models. The governor of the neighbouring Kursk region said yesterday that the Russian military had destroyed two military drones, and state media later published images of fragments of Bayraktars it said had been discovered by a local woman.

If confirmed as Ukrainian strikes, the explosions would represent arguably the most significant attack on Russian territory by a foreign army since the end of the Second World War.Russia has warned that it will launch missiles at government buildings in Kyiv in response to any assault on its territory.

Ukraine has not commented on suspicions that it targeted the facilities in Bryansk. Schools near the burning depots were evacuated this morning and locals said private vehicles were being stopped from entering the city. Several Russian border regions have raised their terrorist threat levels.

 “You could believe in one accidental fire, but two at the same time? Of course not,” said Ivan Zhdanov, an exiled ally of Alexei Navalny, the imprisoned Kremlin critic. “The war has crossed over into Russia.”

Last week Moscow accused Ukrainian combat helicopters of attacking a village in the Bryansk region, injuring seven people. Officials have also blamed Ukraine for an attack on a fuel depot in the Belgorod border region. Kyiv denied it was involved.

Seventeen people were killed last week in a huge fire that erupted at a key Russian defence research institute in Tver, north of Moscow, while a chemical plant in central Russia also recently caught fire. Moscow has blamed the Tver blaze on faulty wiring.

Last night the governor of the Russian region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine, accused Kyiv of bombing one of its villages, injuring two civilians.

Five Russian military recruitment offices have been set on fire by anti-war activists since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, opposition media have reported. Suspects in three of the arson attacks are said to have told police that they wanted to disrupt any mobilisation. A 21-year-old man suspected of throwing a petrol bomb at a recruitment office near Moscow was reported to have jumped out of a window and escaped while police officers were distracted.

The blasts in Bryansk came as President Putin said that Russian FSB security agents had arrested a group of “neo-Nazis” who were planning to kill a prominent Russian journalist. Putin, 69, said the plot was orchestrated by Ukraine with assistance from the CIA.

 “They have switched to terrorist [tactics,]” he said.

Shortly after Putin’s comments, Tass reported that members of a far-right terrorist group called National Socialism/White Power had been arrested in Moscow. Investigators said they were planning to assassinate Vladimir Solovyov, a pro-Kremlin television presenter who has been sanctioned by western countries.

Putin has also accused the West of trying to destroy Russia from within, as well as attempting to discredit the Russian army through news media and social media. “Their efforts will fail,” he said at a meeting with the country’s top prosecutors.