Explosions erupted overnight near military bases deep in Russian-held areas of Ukraine and Russia itself, an apparent display of Kyiv’s growing ability to pummel Moscow’s logistics far from front lines.
The explosions follow huge blasts last week at an air base in Russian-annexed Crimea.
In a new assessment, a Western official said that incident had rendered half of Russia’s Black Sea naval aviation force useless in a stroke.
Ukraine also issued a warning about a frontline nuclear power station where it said it believed Moscow was planning a “large-scale provocation” as justification to decouple the plant from the Ukrainian power grid and connect it to Russia’s.
Continuing the mutual blame game, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of shelling the Zaporizhzhia complex, risking a nuclear catastrophe.
In Crimea – which Moscow seized in 2014 – explosions were reported near an air base in Belbek, on the southwest coast near Sevastopol, headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
On the opposite end of the peninsula, the sky was also lit up at Kerch near a huge bridge to Russia, with what Moscow said was fire from its air defences.
Russia’s RIA and Tass news agencies, citing a local official in Crimea, said that it appeared Russian anti-aircraft forces had been in action near the western Crimean port of Yevpatoriya on Friday night.
Video posted by a Russian website showed what appeared to be a ground-to-air missile hitting a target in the air.
Reuters was unable to immediately confirm the veracity of the video.
Inside Russia, two villages were evacuated after explosions at an ammunition dump in Belgorod province, near the Ukrainian border but more than 100km (60 miles) from territory controlled by Ukrainian forces.
Closer to the front, Kyiv also announced strikes overnight behind Russian lines in southern Kherson province, including at a bridge that served Russia to supply thousands of troops on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
“The Ukrainian armed forces treated the Russians to a magical evening,” said Seriy Khlan, a member of Kherson’s regional council disbanded by Russian occupation forces.
Kyiv has been coy about its role, withholding official comment on incidents in Crimea or inside Russia while hinting that it is behind them using long-range weapons or sabotage.
Russian officials said they had shot down drones in Belbek and Kerch, and confirmed the evacuation in Belgorod.
A Western official indicated yesterday that at least some of the incidents were Ukrainian attacks, saying Kyiv was now consistently achieving “kinetic effects” deep behind Russia’s lines.
The attacks were hurting Russia’s forces and had “a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership”, the official said, on condition of anonymity.
Huge explosions on August 9 at Russia’s Saky air base on the Crimean coast had put more than half of the Black Sea Fleet’s combat jets out of use, the official said, in what would be one of the most costly attacks of the war.
Russia has denied any aircraft were damaged in what it called an accident, although satellite pictures showed at least eight warplanes completely burned out and several huge craters.
Moscow sacked the head of the Black Sea Fleet this week.
Ukraine hopes its apparent new-found ability to hit Russian targets behind the front line can turn the tide in the conflict, disrupting supply lines Moscow needs to support its occupation.
Since last month, Ukraine has been fielding advanced rockets supplied by the West to strike behind Russian lines.
The overnight explosions in Crimea and Belgorod were beyond the range of ammunition Western countries have acknowledged sending so far.
In recent days, Kyiv has been issuing warnings to Russians, for whom Crimea has become a popular summer holiday destination, that nowhere on the peninsula is safe as long as it is occupied.
When the coastal air base was hit last week, Russian tourists were photographed at nearby beaches, staring up from cabanas at huge mushroom clouds in the sky.
A senior Ukrainian official said around half of incidents in Crimea were Ukrainian attacks of some kind, and half accidents caused by Russia’s poor operations.
He emphasised that attacks were carried out by saboteurs rather than long-range weapons, though he would not say whether Kyiv now had ATACMS, a longer range version of the US HIMARS rockets it began using in June.
The official, who declined to be named, said Ukraine had hoped its HIMARS strikes would have a bigger impact in reducing Russian artillery power but that Moscow was now adapting.
“At a certain moment, it lowered the number of their strikes, but now it has risen again because they lengthened their supply lines, and moved (the ammunition) back by some distance,” he said.
Thousands of people have been killed and millions forced to flee since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, saying it aimed to demilitarise Ukraine and protect Russian speakers on what Putin called historical Russian land.
Ukraine and Western countries view it as a war of conquest aimed at wiping out Ukraine’s national identity.
Yesterday the US Defence Department announced a new $775mn package of defence equipment and ammunition for Ukraine, including various types of missiles, artillery and mine-clearing systems.
The package includes more precision-guided missiles for the HIMARS systems, and more anti-armour weapons including TOW missiles and Javelin systems.
It also includes Scan Eagle surveillance drones, high-speed anti-radiation (HARM) missiles that hone in on ground-based radar systems, and 105mm howitzers along with 36,000 artillery rounds for them.
“We want to make sure that Ukraine has a steady stream of ammunition to meet its needs, and that’s what we’re doing with this package,” a senior US defence official told reporters.
The official said Ukraine’s forces have made good use of the now 19 packages of arms the United States has provided since Moscow invaded on February 24, helping them blunt the advance of Russian forces.
“You are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the official said, speaking to reporters on grounds of anonymity. “You are seeing the Russians still paying a high price with Ukrainian attacks, especially using that HIMARS system.
“They are incurring these costs and not able to advance,” he added.
The official conceded that the Ukrainians themselves have not been able to recapture significant territory along the front lines in the country’s east and south.
However, the new package of arms will help fortify them, the official said, noting it was very important to be able to “sustain the successes that we’ve seen from the Ukrainians on the battlefield”.
The official said the addition of mine clearing equipment, which includes 40 mine-resistant vehicles with rollers that can safely explode mines, is to help the Ukrainians with more offensive actions.
“The Ukrainians will need this sort of capability to be able to push their forces forward and retake territory,” the official said.