A massive Ukrainian drone strike on Russia caused an explosion resembling an earthquake at a major arsenal in the Tver region on Wednesday, prompting the evacuation of a nearby town. Unverified videos and images shared on social media captured a giant fireball erupting into the night sky, with several explosions echoing across a lake approximately 380 km (240 miles) west of Moscow. NASA satellites picked up intense heat sources that appeared to be caused by the blasts.
The drone attack comes a day after Ukraine’s military operation in the Kursk region entered deep into Russia’s borders, drawing the country closer to a full-scale invasion of its westernmost border. The daring incursion raised morale in Ukraine and changed the dynamic of the war, enabling special forces to advance into Russia’s occupied territory quickly. CBS News correspondent Ian Lee was on the front lines this week, where he saw a mass collection of Russian military hardware that suggested the assault was not about to slow down.
Ukraine has been fast-tracking the development of its domestic drone industry to enable it to carry out strikes at the Russian military and energy infrastructure. In the last two and a half years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the country has carried out more than 100 drone attacks against its northern neighbor, with many of them hitting energy facilities in its northeast.
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The latest drone attack appears to have targeted a weapons storage facility that housed fuel tanks as well as artillery shells and rockets in a series of warehouses, local officials said. The site was also reportedly packed with ammunition, including nuclear-capable missiles. The attack sparked a giant blast and a fire at the arsenal, sparking a partial evacuation of Toropets, a 1,000-year-old town with a population of about 11,000. Its governor, Igor Rudenya, ordered residents to evacuate near the site and warned them not to share pictures of the damage on social media.
Witnesses reported hearing a “sonic boom” and feeling their homes shake as the explosions rocked the region. A crater formed on the lake where the detonations occurred, and the blasts appeared to destroy several buildings in the area.
A day after the bombing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to continue his country’s military offensive in the western Kursk region. He told a crowd of supporters in Kyiv that Ukraine’s recent success had forced Russia to deploy more troops to the border and that the country would keep moving until it reached its goal of creating what he calls a buffer zone to prevent Russian missiles from being fired at Ukrainian citizens in the east of the country. He also congratulated the soldiers who had participated in the raid, calling them heroes. The Kremlin, however, dismissed the incursion as a political stunt and vowed to retaliate.