Satellite Images Show Destruction of Russian Ammunition Depot in Air Strike

New satellite imagery appears to show the aftermath of a long-range Ukrainian strike on an ammunition depot inside Russia on Saturday, as Kyiv continues its persistent cross-border attacks on Moscow's key military sites.

An image shared by the investigative arm of the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty outlet on Saturday seemed to show a blaze at a munitions storage facility in southern Russia, which Ukraine said it had targeted overnight.

Kyiv has doggedly targeted Russia's military assets, including ammunition sites and air bases, across the border as it tries to damage Moscow's ability to wage war against its neighbor, more than two and a half years into full-scale war.

Newsweek could not independently verify the veracity of the image, and has contacted to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Ukraine's General Staff said in a statement on Saturday that it had hit a munitions depot near Tikhoretsk, a town in Russia's southwestern Krasnodar region.

Kyiv's General Staff said its SBU security service had separately attacked a Russian Defense Ministry ammunition depot close to Oktyabrskiy, a village in the Tver region. "Fire and detonation are recorded in the areas of both military arsenals."

Just days earlier, Ukraine targeted another ammunitions depot in the Tver region, close to the town of Toropets. The resulting explosion at the site was "equivalent to a mild earthquake," the British Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

The Tikhoretsk site was "one of the three largest ammunition storage bases" for Russia and crucial for Moscow's logistics supporting its war effort, Ukrainian military said. Kyiv estimated that around 2,000 tons of ammunition were stored at the site.

The site stored munitions provided by Russian ally North Korea, Kyiv said. Western and Ukrainian officials have said that Pyongyang has provided significant amounts of munitions to Moscow for use in Ukraine.

The U.S.-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in February this year that Tikhoretsk was one of a number of Russian ammunition sites that had been expanded to store munitions closer to the front lines, with a "dramatic increase in activity" reported at Tikhoretsk from the fall of 2023.

The base, which the U.S. said nearly a year ago was housing North Korean hardware, is a "strategically important munitions storage facility for southern Russia and the ongoing war in Ukraine," the think tank said.

Kyiv also attacked a radar station designed to protect the ammunition depot, Ukraine's military said.

Russia's Defense Ministry said early on Saturday that its air defenses had intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones over its territory and the annexed Crimean peninsula overnight, including 18 over Krasnodar.

Ukraine is not yet permitted to use long-range Western-provided weapons to strike deep inside Russia, but has consistently used drones that are able to travel more than hundreds of miles to reach important sites over the border.

Krasnodar regional Governor Veniamin Kondratiev said two drones were intercepted by air defenses and electronic warfare devices in the area around Tikhoretsk, and "the falling debris of one of them caused a fire that spread to explosive objects."

Around 1,200 residents living close to the site were evacuated, Kondratiev said.

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