Moscow [Russia], July 19 : Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed on the explosions at a reported Russian ammunition dump in occupied Crimea, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, CNN reported.
Peskov in response to a question about a fire at the training ground where the ammunition dump is reportedly located, said: “This has been reported to the president.”
He said that the Russian-installed leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, “responded very quickly.”
“We know there was a fire. Urgent measures are being taken, the situation is being clarified. For now, I can't say more,” he said, as per CNN.
The explosions have forced thousands of people to evacuate and prompted leaders there to redirect traffic away from a local highway.
Social media videos show explosions at the site near Stary Krym in Crimea’s Kirorvsky district.
The Russia-backed leader of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said on Telegram that “a fire occurred at a military training ground.”
The original cause of the fire is not known. The well-known Grey Zone Telegram channel suggested that a Ukrainian Storm Shadow missile was responsible for the strike, but there is no official corroboration of that claim. An insurgent Ukrainian group in Crimea, Atesh, celebrated the fire but said that it was not responsible, as per CNN.
Russian state media TASS reported that explosions continued to be heard six hours after the original reported explosions. The head of Crimea’s parliament said that it could take two days to fully extinguish the blaze, according to Russian state media.
Meanwhile, Russia recently launched a barrage of drones and missiles at the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, CNN reported. Russia cited Ukraine's attack on the Crimea bridge for launching a strike on Odesa.
Russian Defense Ministry said, "Tonight the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a group retaliation strike with precision sea-based weapons against facilities where terrorist acts against the Russian Federation were being prepared using uncrewed boats, as well as the place where they were being manufactured at a ship repair plant near the city of Odessa,” the ministry said, using the Russian spelling for the southern city," according to CNN.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force announced that it had intercepted all six Russian Kalibr cruise missiles launched at Odesa and the "vast majority" of Iran-made Shahed attack drones.
On Monday, the Russian government said that two Ukrainian seaborne drones were responsible for the attack on the bridge that connected the annexed Crimean peninsula and Russia's mainland.
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