A Russian air base deep in Crimea's frontline was damaged by several massive explosions, killing at least one person. Range Ukrainian missile attack.
Social media videos showed explosionsand clouds rising from the Sarky military base in Novofedryvka on the west coast of Crimea on Tuesday afternoon, 100 miles (160 km) away. ) questioned how there exist places beyond . ) could have been attacked from the front line. A senior Ukrainian official later claimed responsibility for the attack, but gave no further details.
The Russian Defense Ministry told its RIA Novosti news agency that the explosion occurred around 3:20 p.m. He said he was trying to determine the cause of the incident.
A Russian tourist vacationing on a nearby beach was seen leaving in fearThe peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, It is one of the few opportunities directly impacted by Locals told one Russian news site that the explosion lasted an hour.
The Russian-appointed head of occupied Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, said one person had died. Earlier, he had filmed a video statement near the site,saying smoke was billowing in the distance and paramedics and medics were on site.
Ukrainian officials were slow to comment on the incident, but in the evening Mikhail Podlyak, an adviser to the president, suggested the strike could herald a new phase in the conflict.
Podlyak said that Kyiv's long-term goal was to "demilitarize the Russian Federation." He added: "The future of Crimeais to become a pearl of the Black Sea, a national park with unique nature and world resorts. Not a terrorist military base. It's just the beginning."
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said it was unable to determine the cause of the explosion, but sarcastically said people should respect fire safety rules and "a ban on smoking in unspecified areas." added that it is.
The air force base where Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill landed on their way to the Yalta Conference in February 1945is about 110 miles from the front lines and is normally No land attacks. Ukrainian rocket on the base. However, it may be within range of other long-range systems.
Speculation about Ukraine's missile capabilities has increased in the past 24 hours after the United States confirmed for the first time that it had supplied Kyiv with long-range anti-radiation missiles that would be used to destroy its air defenses. . system.
A Pentagon spokesperson said on Monday that the United States had previously supplied Ukraine with a number of weapons, but did not specify the number or type. The weapon is widely believed to be an AGM-88 high-velocity anti-radiation (harm) missile, the tail of which was disseminated by a Russian blogger on Sunday. , maximum range of about 90 miles.
Last month, Ukraine showed it could use her Himars rockets, which have a range of about 50 miles, to strike increasingly deep into Russian-held territory.
However, there was another suggestion that the Saky base had been attacked by a guerrilla operation. Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of state-owned Russia Today, appeared to suggest in a tweet that the explosion was caused by sabotage. said there was no missile attack, adding that claims that Kyiv forces could strike 300 km (186 miles) were "ukropropaganda". She advised people to 'breathe out and go to the beach'. But other videos showed people in traffic jams trying to flee Crimea.
Sakhi Air Base is about 165 miles from the Ukrainian city of Odessa and speculation that it may have been the target of Neptune-her missiles previously used to knock out the Russian Moscow warship. is calling Anti-ship missiles have a range of about 190 miles and can be used to hit ground targets.
A Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the New York Times that "only Ukrainian equipment was used" in the attack. This could suggest that it was a Ukrainian-developed cruise missile, the Neptune, which first became operational during the early stages of the war.