Ukrainian drones have struck a large military depot in a town deep inside Russia, causing a huge blaze and prompting the evacuation of some local residents, a Ukrainian official and Russian news reports said.
Ukraine claimed the strike destroyed Russian military warehouses in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region about 240 miles north-west of Moscow and about 300 miles from the border with Ukraine.
The attack was carried out by Ukraine’s Security Service, along with Ukraine’s Intelligence and Special Operations Forces, a Kyiv security official told the Associated Press.
According to the official, the depot housed Iskander and Tochka-U missiles, as well as glide bombs and artillery shells. He said the facility caught fire in the strike and was burning across an area four miles wide.
Among the destroyed ammunition were North Korean KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles, another official, in Ukraine’s Intelligence Office, told AP. He did not provide evidence to support his claim.
Russia and North Korea signed a landmark pact last June that envisioned mutual military assistance between Moscow and Pyongyang.
More than 100 domestically produced kamikaze drones were deployed in the attack on the depot, the Ukrainian Intelligence Office official added.
Russian state news agency RIA Novosti quoted regional authorities as saying air defence systems were working to repel a “massive drone attack” on Toropets, which has a population of around 11,000. The agency also reported a fire and the evacuation of some local residents.
The health ministry said 13 people were taken to hospital in the region after the attack, while Tver regional governor Igor Rudenya later said all evacuees could return home.
Successful Ukrainian strikes on targets deep inside Russia have become more common as the war has progressed and Kyiv developed its drone technology.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also seeking the approval from western nations for Ukraine to use the sophisticated weapons they are providing to hit targets inside Russia. Some western leaders have baulked at that possibility, fearing they could be dragged into the conflict.
Ukraine’s targeting of Russian military equipment, ammunition and infrastructure deep inside Russia, as well as making Russian civilians feel some of the consequences of the war that is being fought largely inside Ukraine, is part of Kyiv’s strategy.
The swift push by Ukrainian forces into Russia’s Kursk border region last month fits into that plan, which apparently seeks to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to back down.
Mr Putin, however, has shown no signs of backing down, and has been trying to grind down Ukraine’s resolve through attritional warfare and also sap the West’s support for Kyiv by drawing out the conflict.
That has come at a price, however, as the UK Ministry of Defence estimates that the war has probably killed and wounded more than 600,000 Russian troops.
On Tuesday, Mr Putin ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million by December 1.
Mr Zelensky last month said his plan for victory includes not only battlefield goals but also diplomatic and economic wins.
The plan has been kept under wraps but the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said during a news conference on Tuesday that Washington officials have seen it.
“We think it lays out a strategy and a plan that can work,” she said, adding that the United States will bring it up with other world leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York next week.
