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Ukrainian drones struck a major Russian military depot and weapons store early on Wednesday, triggering an earthquake-sized explosion, according to multiple reports.
Kyiv claimed its attack destroyed military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 240 miles northwest of Moscow and about 300 miles from the border with Ukraine.
It was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces.
A senior Kyiv official said the depot housed Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells. He said the facility caught fire in the strike and was burning across an area four miles wide.
Among the destroyed ammunition were North Korean KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, another official, in Ukraine’s Intelligence Office, told Associated Press – though he didn’t provide evidence to support his claim.
Russia and North Korea signed a landmark pact in June that envisioned mutual military assistance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Unverified video and images on social media showed a huge ball of flame blasting high into the night sky and multiple detonations thundering across a lake.
Nasa satellites picked up intense heat sources emanating from the depot and earthquake monitoring stations picked up what sensors thought was a tremor in the area.
“The enemy hit an ammunition depot in the area of Toropets,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “Everything that can burn is already burning there (and exploding).”
Russian state media have in the past reported that a major arsenal of conventional weapons was located at the site of the blasts. State media, which is now subject to military censorship laws, was muted in its reporting on Wednesday.
Igor Rudenya, the governor of the Tver region, said that Ukrainian drones had been shot down, that a fire had broken out and that some residents were being evacuated. He did not say what was burning.
One woman told Reuters that members of her family had been evacuated from Toropets.
The size of the main blast, shown in the unverified social media video, was consistent with 200-240 tons of high explosives detonating, said George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in California.
Meanwhile, a senior US diplomat said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has a workable plan to end the war – but details have not been publicly disclosed. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, US ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington officials have seen it. “We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she told reporters.
Mr Zelensky is still seeking approval from Western nations for Ukraine to use the sophisticated weapons they are providing to hit targets inside Russia. Some Western leaders have balked at that, fearing they could be dragged into the conflict.
On Tuesday, Vladimir Putin ordered Russia’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million by 1 December.
Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report
