Ukraine Hits Arms Sites in Russia, Warns of New Nuclear Threats

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(Bloomberg) — Ukraine’s armed forces confirmed overnight attacks on major Russian munitions depots while its newly appointed foreign minister warned of possible Russian targeting of nuclear power sites.

Andriy Sipia said in a series of tweets on X (formerly Twitter) that intelligence sources reported that Russia was “preparing to strike vital nuclear power facilities in Ukraine before winter.”

The threat particularly concerns “open distribution devices” at nuclear power plants and transmission substations, “which are critical for the safe operation of nuclear energy,” Sepia added. He said Ukrainian special services had passed on relevant information to their partners and to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog.

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One of the drone strikes overnight, which Ukraine claimed responsibility for in a Telegram post by its military, hit an arms depot near Tikhoretsk in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia. About 1,200 people were evacuated after what local officials described as debris from a downed drone sparked a large fire.

Ukraine said the second strike targeted the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Artillery Command near Oktyabrsky in the Tver region north of Moscow.

The strikes came after Ukraine said on Wednesday it had destroyed a large stockpile of Russian weapons using long-range drones, also in the Tver region about 500 kilometres (310 miles) from Ukraine’s northern border.

In the Krasnodar Territory, the fire spread to “explosive objects” and caused explosions, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on his Telegram channel while announcing the evacuations.

The strike came as a new train carrying at least 2,000 tons of ammunition, including from North Korea, arrived at the site, according to the Ukrainian military. The claim could not be independently verified.

Images on social media showed a large fire at what was said to be a military base in the area just east of Russia-annexed Crimea.

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NASA’s FIRMS monitoring system, which tracks fires around the world using satellite data, recorded new heat signals near Tikhoretsk.

The area corresponds to a fenced storage facility with walled hangars and a local military air base, as shown in satellite imagery.

A week ago, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence said that supplies from Pyongyang were becoming a major headache, because their arrival in Russia usually heralds more intense military activity by the Kremlin within eight to nine days.

Ukrainian security service drones also attacked the Chaikovka air base in Russia’s Kaluga region overnight, where Tu-22M strategic bombers — which regularly engage in massive missile strikes — are believed to be based, according to a person familiar with the operation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Russia has not commented.

The increased activity comes after Ukraine announced on Wednesday that it had destroyed a large stockpile of Russian weapons using long-range drones.

In that incident, about 100 explosive-laden drones destroyed a depot of Iskander and Tochka-U missiles in Toropets, a town in Russia’s western Tver region, Ukrainian military officials familiar with the matter said.

—With assistance from Alexander Kudritsky.

(Recast with Secretary of State’s comments on nuclear threat.)

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