Explosions erupted across Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine on Thursday night as Ukrainian forces escalated their weeks-long campaign of deep strikes on Russian logistics and airfields.
The blasts, targeting ammunition dumps, airfields and other facilities, could disrupt supply lines and air operations and further isolate Russian troops in Ukraine—especially in the south, where Kyiv has been struggling to organize a counteroffensive aimed at liberating the port of Kherson from Russian occupiers.
The strikes began around sunset. An ammo dump exploded in Timonovo, in Russia’s Belgorod Oblast 20 miles from the border with northeast Ukraine. A fire also broke out at Stary Oskol airfield in Belgorod.
Meanwhile something exploded in Nova Kakhovka on the bank of the Dnipro River 30 miles east of Kherson. It was the second time in 24 hours the Ukrainians had struck Russian facilities in the town.
Around the same time, Russian air-defenses reportedly opened fire around Belbek airport in western Crimea and near the Kerch Strait on the eastern side of the peninsula.
It’s not totally clear all the explosions were the results of Ukrainian attacks, but the locations of the blazes are consistent with Kyiv’s ongoing campaign of deep strikes. That campaign has focused on shaping the battlefield in southern Ukraine while also plucking at Russian supply hubs and airfields around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s most vulnerable free city just 25 miles from the border with Russia in the northeast.
The southern strikes coincide with a Ukrainian counteroffensive on the ground. Ukrainian battalions back in May forced their way across the Inhulets River, a natural defensive line that, for months, had separated the Russians and Ukrainians north of Kherson.
But the Ukrainians apparently didn’t advance very far beyond their river lodgments. The Russian 49th Combined Arms Army with its dozen battalions stood between the counterattackers and Kherson. And more Russian battalions arrived in July and August as the Kremlin recognized the danger to its position in the south.
While Ukraine’s tankers and infantry idled just across the Inhulets, Ukrainian gunners, rocketeers, missile crews and drone operators launched coordinated strikes on the 49th CAA’s supply lines as well as on air bases directly supporting the southern army.
Ukrainian artillery—possibly 227-millimeter rockets from High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems or 155-millimeter guns firing Excalibur GPS-guided shells—in late July and early August temporarily knocked out all three bridges spanning the Dnipro and Inhulets near Kherson