Videos showing plumes of smoke and a series of explosions were disseminated on social media at a suspected weapons depot site in a village 15-20 kilometers from the Russian city of Belgorod.
Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, is located less than 80 kilometers from Belgorod.
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Russian media said the explosions occurred on May 1 in the area in Streletskoe and Tomarovka villages of the region.
Local media outlet Moe Belgorod (My Belgorod) reported that a resident was injured in the area and that a “Russian Defense Ministry site was damaged,” while citing regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
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Partial destruction of a railway bridge near Kursk, a region which also borders Ukraine, was reported the same day by the regional Governor Roman Starovoit on his Telegram channel.
The previous day, April 30, Starovoit said that mortar shells “from Ukraine” struck the “Krupets checkpoint” near the border with Ukraine.
Russia has previously blamed Ukraine for such explosions at ammunition and oil depots, as well as other infrastructural and military sites.
Officially, Kyiv authorities have neither confirmed nor denied such reports and open-source reporting cited by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty says at least a dozen such incidents have occurred since Kremlin autocrat Vladimir Putin ordered a renewed invasion of the country on Feb. 24.
Moscow has continuously warned Ukraine of cross-border strikes on its territory by threatening to hit critical “brain centers” in Kyiv.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 20, 2024
Speaking to the New York Times, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said such attacks on Russian infrastructure supporting its ongoing invasion are justified in war time.
“If you decided to attack another country, commit mass murder, crush peaceful people with tanks, and support murder using warehouses in your region, then sooner or later the time will come to repay that debt,” said Podolyak “So, the disarmament of the killers’ warehouses in Belgorod and Voronezh regions is just a completely wholesome, natural process. Karma is a harsh thing.”
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