A Russian airbase deep behind the front lines in Crimea was damaged by several large explosions, killing at least one person, although it was not immediately clear if it was the target of a long-range Ukrainian missile attack.
Multiple social media videos showed explosions and clouds emerging from the Saky military base in Novofedorivka on Crimea’s west coast on Tuesday afternoon, raising questions about how a location more than 160 km from the front line could be attacked. A senior Ukrainian official later appeared to claim responsibility, without giving details.
The Russian Defense Ministry told RIA Novosti news agency that the blasts took place around 3:20 p.m. local time and that “several aircraft munitions” detonated in a storage area. They said they were trying to determine the cause of the incident.
Russian tourists vacationing on nearby beaches could be seen leave out of fear. It is one of the few occasions that the peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, has been directly affected by recent fighting. Locals told a Russian news site that the blasts lasted for an hour.
Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of occupied Crimea, said one person died. He had previously filmed a video statement near the site, showing smoke rising in the distance, and said ambulances and paramedics were at the scene.
Ukrainian officials have been slower to comment on the incident, but earlier in the evening a presidential aide, Mikhail Podolyak, seemed to indicate that the strike could herald a new phase in the conflict.
Podolyak said Kiev’s long-term goal is “the demilitarization of the Russian Federation.” He added: “The future of Crimea should be a pearl of the Black Sea, a national park with unique nature and a world resort. No military base for terrorists. It’s just the beginning.”
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said it could not determine the cause of the blasts, but smugly added that people should heed fire safety regulations and “the ban on smoking in unspecified places.”
The air base where Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill landed in February 1945 en route to the Yalta Conference is too far – about 110 miles – from the front line to be hit by conventional Ukrainian land-launched missiles. However, it could be within range of other longer-range systems.
In the previous 24 hours, speculation about Ukraine’s missile capability had increased after the US confirmed for the first time that it had supplied Kyiv with long-range anti-radiation missiles used to disable air defense systems.
A Pentagon spokesman said Monday that the US had previously shipped a number of weapons to Ukraine, but declined to say how many or of what type. The weapons are widely believed to be the AGM-88 high-velocity anti-radiation missile (Harm), a tailfin of which was put into circulation by Russian bloggers on Sunday. They are usually launched from an airplane and have a maximum range of about 90 miles.
Over the past month, Ukraine has demonstrated its ability to penetrate ever deeper into Russian territory with the Himars missile artillery, which has a range of about 50 miles.
However, there were other indications that the Saky base was hit by a guerrilla operation. Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the state newspaper Russia Today, appeared to suspect in a tweet that the blasts were caused by sabotage – although she later said the blast was caused by “several munitions” detonating at a warehouse.
In her later posts, Simonyan said there had been no rocket attacks, adding that claims that Kiev’s forces could strike 300 km (186 miles) were “ucropropaganda”. She advised people to “exhale and go to the beach.” However, other videos showed traffic jams forming as people tried to flee Crimea.
The Saky airbase is about 165 miles from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, prompting speculation that it may have been hit by Neptun missiles previously used to take out the Russian warship Moskva. The anti-ship missiles have a range of about 190 miles and can be used to hit ground targets.
A Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously, told the New York Times that “an exclusively Ukrainian device was used” in the attack. This could indicate that it was a Neptune, a cruise missile developed by Ukraine that first became operational in the early stages of the war.
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Earlier Tuesday, officials said at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 wounded in a 24-hour period by Russian shelling, including in an attack near the Russian-held Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Dnipropetrovsk region governor Valentyn Reznichenko said Russian forces fired more than 120 rockets at the city of Nikopol across the Dnieper, damaging several residential houses and industrial facilities.
The prime ministers of Estonia and Finland have urged other European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, saying they should not be able to vacation in Europe while the Russian government is waging a war in Ukraine.
Kaja Kallas, the Prime Minister of Estonia, said on Tuesday that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it was “time to end tourism from Russia now,” a day after a similar appeal by her counterpart in Finnland. Sanna Marin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went further in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, calling for a total travel ban and the expulsion of Russians who had migrated to the West. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the idea was “irrational thinking.”