Photos show large craters
Explosion near military airfield in Krasnodar, Russia
07/02/2023 8:06 p.m
The city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk on the Azov Sea is located not far from Ukraine. According to reports, the Russian army launches drone attacks at night from a neighboring airfield. Now Ukraine may strike back.
According to media reports, a major explosion occurred not far from a military airfield in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar. Photos of a crater that is said to be about four meters deep and about 30 meters in diameter were published on the Telegram social network. The crater was formed near the airfield in the city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk. Videos from the region show a high column of smoke. The military airfield is said to be only about 200 meters from the crater.
The Governor of Krasnodar Veniamin Kondratiev share with, the “incident” will be investigated. There are no victims, he wrote. Residential houses and other objects were also not damaged according to initial findings.
Krasnodar Krai is located in southern Russia and borders Crimea to the west. The capital of the same name is located only about 250 kilometers from the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 and is connected to it via the Kerch Bridge. In the north-west of the region is the Azov Sea, in the south-west is the Black Sea.
Launch site for drone attacks?
The city of Primorsko-Akhtarsk is located about a two-hour drive north of the city of Krasnodar on the Azov Sea. On the opposite side of the neighboring sea are areas of Ukraine occupied by Russia. According to unconfirmed reports, the Russian army is said to launch most of its Iranian drones from the city’s military airport, with which it attacks Ukrainian cities, especially at night.
What caused the crater is unclear. There is speculation that Ukraine may have tried to hit the adjacent military airport with a kamikaze drone. In the Telegram channels of Russian military bloggers, on the other hand, an attack with a converted S-200 anti-aircraft missile is suspected, with which Ukraine has accordingly already attacked targets in Crimea. The use of the Ukrainian short-range missile Sapsan, which is also known as Hrim-2 and comes from Ukrainian production, is considered possible. The bloggers, on the other hand, consider a drone attack to be out of the question because the crater is too big for it.
In the course of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Russian border regions have been repeatedly shelled for months. However, the number of victims and damage are disproportionate to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.