Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Looks like more Russian bases in Crimea are blowing up despite being hundreds of miles from the front lines.

First up: France 24 reports explosions on a base in NE Crimea:

Caveat: The video map calls the location Mayskoye, which isn’t in Crimea, but across the Kerch strait in Russia proper. Later, they show a tweet with the location as Dzhankoi, which matches up with the location shown on the map.

More video, where you can see subsequent munitions explosions, and which says that Mayskoye is 14 miles from Dzhankoi:

I assume that the Crimean Mayskoye is a local town or subdivision too small to show up in Google Maps.

There are also reports of explosions on the Russian-occupied airfield near Simferopol.

The Russian mass media report of clouds of black smoke over the military airfield in the village of Hvardiiske, Simferopol district of Russian-occupied Crimea.

Source: Kommersant publication with reference to local residents, Christo Grozev, head of Bellingcat on Twitter

Details: Local residents also confirm that clouds of black smoke are seen above the airbase in Hvardiiske.

According to them, several explosions were heard earlier on the territory of the military base.

According to the source, local military departments and law enforcement agencies assume it could be an attack by a small unmanned aerial vehicle that hit an ammunition storage.

Supposedly this is video of the explosion. Usual caveats apply.

3 seconds from flash to bang, she was about a kilometer from the explosion, gives you some idea how big this was ~ pic.twitter.com/Q8RIRIxYbz

— Tomaburque (@tomaburque) August 16, 2022

And this is supposedly video of Russians lining up to leave Simferopol following the strikes:

After today's explosions in Crimea, queues formed at Simferopol railway station
People cannot leave because the occupying "authorities" have shortened the route of trains coming from the russia. #Ukraine #Crimea #Ukraina #StandWithUkraine #Krym #RussiaIsATerroristState pic.twitter.com/pKNGvvYkC6

— Saint sinner 🇺🇦 (@missOlga1201) August 16, 2022

A few takeaways:

The size of the explosions suggest that Ukraine continues to receive good location intelligence about Russian military infrastructure and ammo dumps.

From the beginning of Russia’s invasion to last week, reports of major Ukrainian strike on Crimea were all but non-existent. Since then we’ve had several. Clearly Ukraine sees a new need and/or ability to strike these farther targets.

This may be an attempt to cripple Russian supply lines and air support in support of Ukraine’s slow-developing Kherson counteroffensive.

Tags: Crimea, Dzhankoi, Foreign Policy, Military, Russia, Russo-Ukrainian War, Simferopol, Ukraine, video

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2022 at 12:41 PM and is filed under Foreign Policy, Military, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.