Fire Breaks Out At Russian Military Site – A fire broke out at a Russian defense ministry facility in Belgorod, a southern region on the border with Ukraine. The news was announced by the regional governor on Sunday, who also said that one person was injured.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov also revealed that seven homes had been damaged as a result of the fire and that the injured resident was in a stable condition and suffered only minor injuries. A railway bridge used by freight trains was also reportedly damaged.
“On the border of three municipalities; Borisov and Belgorod districts and Yakovlevsky urban district – a fire occurred on the territory of one of the facilities of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation,” Gladkov said.
Western media outlets and intelligence officials have been unable to confirm the reports, and whether Russia is telling the truth about fatalities – or the lack thereof – as a result of the fire.
Images shared online showed large plumes of smoke rising into the air
Roman Starovoyt, the Governor of Russia’s Kursk Oblast, also said on his official Telegram channel that the fire was an act of sabotage by the Ukrainian military.
Why Do Fires Keep Breaking Out in Belgorod?
This isn’t the first time a fire has broken out in Belgorod.
On April 1, Russia accused Ukraine of escalating the conflict by using a helicopter to attack a fuel depot in Belgorod. It was considered the first Ukrainian airstrike on Russian soil since the invasion started.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the attack hurt the possibility of continued peace talks.
“This is not something that can be perceived as creating conditions comfortable for the continuation of negotiations,” he said.
Ukrainian officials neither confirmed nor denied the attack, and some analysts suggested that it could have been an error made by Russian helicopter pilots who refused to fly into Ukrainian territory. Most, however, agreed that it appeared to have been carried out by two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters that fired rockets at the fuel depot from a low altitude.
Local reports of the fire could not be verified by Western media outlets on Sunday. It may raise questions about whether Russian officials are telling the whole truth. While there is precedent for Ukraine attacking the site, if Russia was looking for a pretext to escalate the conflict in Ukraine, this could be one such way.
If Ukraine is in fact responsible, however, it would explain President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s continued calls for the supply of new artillery and helicopters in NATO aid packages. In the $800 million aid package announced in mid-April, the United States sent the Ukrainian military new Mi-17 helicopters that could be used in attacks like this, as well as 300 Switchblade drones.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
