Ukraine attacks Russia's Tver region with drones, causing huge explosion

The attack caused massive explosions and fires in Toropets, a 1,000-year-old town in the Tver region with a population of just over 11,000 people, about 400 kilometers west of Moscow.

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Video of the explosion. Source: X/@lvincenta1

Russian air defenses are still repelling a large-scale drone attack over Toropets. Igor Rudenya, governor of the Tver region, said firefighters were trying to contain a fire at the site where debris from the drone fell.

Governor Igor Rudenya has authorized partial evacuation of residents to the town of Zapadnaya Dvina.

Video and images on social media showed a giant fireball exploding high into the night sky and a loud explosion heard over a lake in an area northwest of Moscow and not far from the border with Belarus.

Location of Tver region of Russia on the map. Graphic photo: BBC

NASA satellites picked up multiple heat sources emanating from the site early on September 18. Earthquake monitoring stations also detected signals that were sensed as a small earthquake in the area.

There are no reports of casualties. The size of the explosion shown in the video on social media is equivalent to 200 to 240 tons of high explosives exploding, according to George William Herbert of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.

The Zapadnaya Dvina district administration in the Tver region said on social media that school and kindergarten services have switched to online learning.

A giant fireball exploded high in the night sky over Toropets. Screenshot from video

Russia is building a weapons depot to store missiles, ammunition and explosives in the town of Toropets, according to a 2018 RIA news agency report. The depot was built in 2015 at a cost of 3.6 billion rubles ($39 million).

According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the arsenal is equipped with cold and hot rooms, power substations, processing facilities, water and fuel tanks, and more than 100 firefighting tanks. The arsenal has been in operation since 2018.

The arsenal is equipped with concrete storage facilities to store missiles, ammunition and explosives in suitable conditions, protecting them from air and missile strikes, and even from the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion, said then-Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov.

Hoai Phuong (according to Reuters, TASS)

Source: https://www.congluan.vn/ukraine-bat-ngo-tan-cong-vung-tver-cua-nga-gay-ra-vu-no-lon-nhu-dong-dat-post312906.html