Footage widely shared on social media shows a huge fireball erupting over a Russian airbase, apparently housing tactical and strategic bombers, including Su-24 fighter jets.
A fire broke out at the Marinovka military airfield in the southwestern Volgograd region after Ukrainian forces launched a series of drone strikes as kyiv continued its Kursk offensive.
Several explosions were reported at Marinovka, an airbase of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the village of Oktyabrsky, Kalachevsky District.
Hours after a Ukrainian drone attack last night, the Russian military airfield Marynivka in Volgograd continues to explode.
This airfield, located in the Kalachevsky district of Volgograd, is home to (or used to be home to) Su-24MR front-line reconnaissance aircraft. pic.twitter.com/mWcGhufB0t
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) August 22, 2024
Data from NASA’s fire-monitoring satellites, which monitor wildfires on Earth, showed that fires were breaking out around the air base, where fighter jets had previously been seen parked.
Residents of Kalach-on-Don, a city in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast, have reported hearing drones and explosions in the sky.
Newsweek contacted the Russian Defense Ministry by email for comment.
Evgeny Maloletka/AP
Andrei Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said on Thursday that a “Defense Ministry facility” was on fire after being attacked by drones in the Marinovka region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said up to 28 drones were launched across Russia by Ukraine in the attack.
“Most of the drones were destroyed. As a result of the drone crash, a fire broke out on the territory of a Defense Ministry facility,” Bocharo said.
Marinovka is located about 300 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border and about the same distance west of the border with Kazakhstan.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Sumy in northeastern Ukraine on Thursday for the first time since his troops entered Russian territory more than two weeks ago in a bold military operation that is the largest attack on Russia since World War II.
Efrem Loukatski/AP
Zelensky said Ukrainian forces have claimed control of another settlement in Russia’s Kursk region and captured more Russian prisoners of war whom he hopes to exchange for captured Ukrainians.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its military had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region.
The attack comes after Russian air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, in what the Kremlin described as “one of the largest” drone attacks ever carried out on the capital.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in kyiv warned of an increased risk of Russian missile and drone attacks across Ukraine in the coming days, as the country prepares to celebrate 33 years of independence from the Soviet Union on Saturday.
Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said earlier this week that Russia has launched 9,600 missiles and 14,000 drones in strikes against Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Elina Beketova, a democracy researcher at the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said: Newsweek: “Since the beginning of June, more than 2,000 Russian strikes have been launched from Kursk Oblast on Sumy Oblast in Ukraine, using 255 guided aerial bombs and more than 100 missiles.
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