Ukrainian armed forces launched a pair of long-range attacks against Russian arsenals in which both facilities were destroyed, military officials clamed Saturday. File photo by Master Sgt. Mark Burrell/U.S. Defense Department
Sept. 21 (UPI) — Ukrainian military leaders claimed Saturday to have destroyed a pair of weapons arsenals deep inside Russian territory, including one that was receiving ammunition from North Korea.
The targets in the Tver and Krasnodar regions of the Russian Federation were hit early Saturday morning, the Ukrainian General Staff said in a Facebook post.
The overnight strikes were aimed at the 23rd arsenal of the Russia Ministry of Defense’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate in Tver and the 719th artillery ammunition base near Tikhoretsk in Russia’s Krasnodar region, they said.
The strikes triggered detonations of the respective munitions depots and destroyed them.
The Tikhoretsk arsenal in Krasnodar territory “is one of the three largest ammunition storage hubs of the invaders and is one of the key ones in the logistics system of the Russian forces,” the Ukrainian military said.
A train delivering some 2,000 tons of ammunition, including some provided by North Korea, was in the area when the depot was destroyed, they claimed.
A drone strike also targeted a nearby Podliot radar station intended to detect aerial assaults against the ammunition depot.
The 23rd arsenal, located near Oktiabrskyi in the Tver region, caught fire when attacked.
Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Special Operations Forces, Security Service and other military elements carried out the dual attacks, according to the military.
They came three days after Ukrainian forces targeted and destroyed an ammunition storage facility in Toropets in central Russia with a massed drone strike, according to multiple media reports.
That overnight raid was described as one of the most destructive long-range attacks launched against Russian forces since the invasion of Ukraine 30 months ago.