Explosions at the ammunition depot in Toropets – what was stored there

The Russian weapons depot in the Tver region, a facility in Toropets renovated in 2018, stored tons of military supplies: explosives, artillery shells, ballistic missiles.

An attack by Ukrainian drones on a warehouse containing large stockpiles of Russian weapons in the Tver region on Wednesday morning could become the largest strike by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Moscow's arsenal since the beginning of 2022, writes Euronews. The force of the series of explosions caused earthquake monitoring stations to interpret them as a small tremor measuring 2.8 on the Richter scale. The general appearance of the aftermath of this impact is shown satellite image.

According to some estimates, the facility in Toropets was storing approximately 30,000 tons of military ammunition. It is likely that the destruction of the weapons stored there will have a rather negative impact on the northern operational group of the Russian army, including the supply of troops in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk.

How important is the Russian military depot in Toropets, and what does it look like? Former Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov, who was arrested earlier this year on corruption charges, said after the reconstruction that the facility meets “the highest international standards” and can protect weapons from missiles and “even from a small nuclear attack.”

The storage area is more than 5 square kilometers, the length of the perimeter is twelve kilometers.According to Ukrainian sources, Fuel tanks, missiles for the Iskander and Tochka-U missile systems, guided aerial bombs and various artillery munitions were stored at the military facility in Toropets. Andrey Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation, stated that in addition to its own ammunition, Russia also stored North Korean ammunition in Toropets.

Satellite images taken by Maxar clearly show the extent of the damage from the Ukrainian drone attack, which caused a series of explosions. Large plumes of smoke rise over much of the area, and upon closer inspection, fires are still burning in and around some of the bunkers, ISW analyst George Barros said.

Maxar collected imagery showing damage from a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack that caused a series of explosions at an ammunition depot in Toropets, Russia—approximately 240 miles west of Moscow. 📷@Maxar

Imagery collected on September 18 pic.twitter.com/iIbLOPrrrX

— George Barros (@georgewbarros) September 18, 2024

Most of the ammunition is believed to be stored underground, and the question is whether Ukraine used drones that could penetrate the bunkers. Due to the dense smoke, a full assessment of the damage is not yet possible. However, the destruction of the bunkers could also have occurred because Moscow did not follow its own rules, for example by placing them too close to each other.

Russian Z-blogger Anastasia Kashevarova statedthat dozens of Russian soldiers were probably killed in the exploded warehouse in Toropets. It is difficult to establish the exact number of victims, since, judging by the explosions, nothing was left of the bodies. She analyzes the cause of what happened:

Ukraine has repeatedly called on the West to lift restrictions on the use of long-range missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory and uses its own UAVs in attacks on Russian targets, including at a great distance from the front line, as was the case in Orsk, when a Ukrainian drone covered a distance of 1,800 km.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the Ukrainian Armed Forces for the precise strike on Russian territory. He did not directly mention any specific events, but his words came after Ukrainian intelligence agencies claimed that an ammunition depot in the Russian city of Toropets in the Tver region had been hit:

“First of all, I want to thank our soldiers who ensure our Ukrainian long-range capabilities. There was a very important result last night on Russian territory, it is precisely such things that weaken the enemy.”

Source link