Ukraine war: Russian villages evacuated after fire at munitions depot

The residents of two villages in Russia’s Belgorod region on Ukraine’s northeastern border were evacuated after a fire at a munitions depot near the village of Timonovo, the region’s governor said on Friday. There were no casualties in the late Thursday blaze, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. The fire came days after another ammunition depot exploded on Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, a Russian-occupied territory seized by Moscow in 2014. Last week, nine Russian warplanes were reported destroyed at an airbase on Crimea, demonstrating both the Russians’ vulnerability and the Ukrainians’ capacity to strike deep behind enemy lines. Ukrainian authorities have stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility. But President Volodymyr Zelensky alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines after the blasts in Crimea, which Russia has blamed on “sabotage”. Meanwhile, Kyiv and Moscow continued to accuse each other of shelling Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, stoking international fears of a catastrophe on the continent. Nato builds Romania base in race to counter Russia in Europe’s weak spot On Friday, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, accused the United States of encouraging Ukrainian attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. The facility has been controlled by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began on February 24. “In case of a technological disaster, its consequences will be felt in every corner of the world,” Patrushev said. “Washington, London and their accomplices will bear full responsibility for that.” Ukraine has accused Russia of storing troops and weapons at the Zaporizhzhia plant and using its grounds to launch strikes against Ukrainian-controlled territory. Ukrainian officials and military analysts say Moscow’s forces have cynically employed the plant as a shield, knowing that the Ukrainians would be hesitant to fire back. Russia has denied the accusations and, in turn, accused Ukrainian forces of repeatedly shelling the plant. Following a visit to Ukraine on Thursday, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Zelensky had asked him to ensure that Russia remove weapons stored at the plant as an “important step for world peace”. “Zelensky asked this of us especially: that Russia remove all mines and similar (weapons) there and for the issue to rapidly cease to be frightening. Because it is a threat,” Erdogan said. Erdogan, whose country has maintained close relations with both Ukraine and Russia, said he would discuss the issue with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that “Russia must do its part in this regard”. Ukraine minister warns SE Asia from buying ‘poor quality’ Russian arms Erdogan made the comments to a group of Turkish journalists on his return from a visit with Zelensky and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Ukraine late on Thursday. At the meeting in the western city of Lviv, far from the front lines, the leaders discussed expanding exchanges of prisoners of war and arranging for UN atomic energy experts to visit and help secure the nuclear power plant. Guterres was expected in war-scarred southern Ukraine’s main port of Odesa on Friday, after he said Türkiye and Ukraine hoped to scale up their landmark grain export deal with Russia. The only significant agreement between Russia and Ukraine since Moscow invaded in February, has so far seen 25 boats carrying some 600,000 tonnes of agricultural products depart from three designated ports, Kyiv has said. Zelensky told Erdogan and Guterres he believes it is a “global need to increase the number of vessels that safely export Ukrainian food”. “Our state is ready to be and will be the guarantor of global food security,” Zelensky added. Crimea ‘sabotage’ highlights Russia’s woes in Ukraine war Guterres was expected to head to Türkiye after Odesa to visit the Joint Coordination Centre, the body tasked with overseeing the accord. Away from Ukraine, Moscow said it has deployed three MiG-31 fighter jets armed with hypersonic missiles to its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, a show of force in a Russian region that neighbours the European Union. The Defence Ministry in Moscow said the jets carrying the new Kinzhal air-to-surface missiles have been stationed at the Chkalovsk airbase as an “additional measure of strategic deterrence.” Kaliningrad is located between the EU countries of Poland and Lithuania, more than 1,000km from Moscow. Lithuania’s Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said the missile deployment does not change the regional security situation or increase the threat level, BNS agency reported. In the United States, President Joe Biden’s administration was readying about US$800 million of additional military aid to Ukraine and could announce it as soon as Friday, three sources familiar with the matter said. Washington has sent billions of dollars in security assistance to the Kyiv government. Additional reporting by Reuters, dpa and Agence France-Presse