(Bloomberg) -- Ukraine’s armed forces confirmed overnight attacks on large Russian ammunition warehouses while its recently-appointed foreign minister warned of potential Russian targeting of nuclear power sites.
According to intelligence sources, Russia “is preparing strikes on Ukrainian nuclear energy critical objects ahead of winter,” Andrii Sybiha said in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter.
In particular, the threat concerns “open distribution devices” at nuclear power plants and transmission substations, “critical for the safe operation of nuclear energy,” Sybiha added. Ukraine’s special services passed on relevant information to its partners and to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, he said.
One of the overnight drone hits claimed by Ukraine in a Telegram post by its military was an arms depot near Tikhoretsk in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. About 1,200 people were evacuated after what local officials described as debris from a downed drone ignited a large blaze.
The second hit was to the chief artillery command of Russia’s defense ministry near Oktiabrskiy in the Tver region, north of Moscow, Ukraine said.
The strikes came after Ukraine on Wednesday said it destroyed a large Russian weapons stockpile using long-range drones, also in the Tver region about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Ukraine’s northern border.
In Krasnodar Krai, fire spread to “explosive objects” and set off detonations, governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on his Telegram channel in announcing the evacuations.
The strike took place just as a new train formation arrived at the site carrying at least 2,000 tons of ammunition, including from North Korea, according to Ukraine’s military. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Images on social media showed a large fire at what was said to be a military base in the region that’s directly east of the annexed Crimea peninsula.
NASA’s FIRMS monitoring system, which tracks fires worldwide using satellite data, recorded new heat signatures near Tikhoretsk.
The area corresponded to a fenced storage facility with hangars surrounded by ramparts and a local military airbase, as seen on satellite imagery.
A week ago, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief said supplies from Pyongyang had become a major headache, since their arrival in Russia typically portends more intense Kremlin military activity within eight to nine days.
Ukraine’s Security Service drones also attacked the Shaykovka air base in Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, where Tu-22M strategic bombers - regularly involved in massive missile attacks - are believed to be based, according to a person familiar with the operation who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly. Russia hasn’t commented.
The stepped-up activity comes after Ukraine on Wednesday said it destroyed a large Russian weapons stockpile using long-range drones.
In that incident, about 100 explosive-laden unmanned aircraft destroyed a cache of Iskander and Tochka-U missiles in Toropets, a town in the Tver region of western Russia, Ukrainian military officials familiar with the matter said.
--With assistance from Aliaksandr Kudrytski.
(Recasts with foreign minister comments on nuclear threat.)
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