Large explosions rock Russian airbase in annexed Crimea

At least one person was killed and several others injured, after powerful explosions rocked a Russian air base in Crimea on Tuesday, Russian authorities said.

Towering clouds of smoke were pictured above the base, but Russia's Defence Ministry denied the Saki base, on the Black Sea, had been shelled and said instead that munitions had blown up at the site.

Russian warplanes have used the Saki base to strike areas in Ukraine’s south on short notice.

But Ukrainian social networks were abuzz with speculation that it was hit by long-range missiles fired by their own forces.

Videos posted online showed sunbathers fleeing a nearby beach as huge flames and pillars of smoke rose over the horizon from multiple points, accompanied by loud booms.

Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted an unidentified ministry source as saying the explosions’ primary cause appeared to be a “violation of fire safety requirements”. No warplanes were damaged, according to the ministry.

Ukraine’s own Defence Ministry posted on social media: “The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine cannot establish the cause of the fire, but once again recalls the rules of fire safety and the prohibition of smoking in unspecified places.”

In another post, alongside a picture showing a tower of smoke rising in the background as a man in swimming trunks sunbathed, it said: "The Ministry of Defence of Ukraine would like to remind everyone that the presence of occupying troops on the territory of Ukrainian Crimea is not compatible with the high tourist season."

Despite the cause of the explosions, damage to one of Russia's key bases will be viewed as an embarrassment to Vladimir Putin.

Sergey Aksyonov, head of Russian-annexed Crimea, said ambulances and medical helicopters were scrambled to the Saki air base and authorities sealed off the area within a radius of five kilometres (about three miles) from the base.

He said one person was killed while health authorities confirmed six people were injured, one of whom remains hospitalised. Others were treated for cuts from shards of glass and were released.

During the war, Russia has reported numerous fires and explosions at munitions storage sites on its territory near the Ukrainian border, blaming some of them on Ukrainian strikes.

Ukrainian authorities have mostly remained silent about the incidents, maintaining an ambiguous stand.

Video showing the aftermath of the Crimea explosions

If Kyiv's forces were, in fact, responsible for the blasts, it would mark the first known major attack at a Russian military site, on the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.

Last month, a smaller explosion at the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, was blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs using a makeshift drone.

Officials in Moscow have long warned Ukraine that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including strikes on “decision-making centres” in Kyiv.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 wounded by Russian shelling in the last 24 hours, including an attack not far from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

More than 120 Russian rockets were fired at the town of Nikopol, across the Dnieper River from the plant, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.

Several apartment buildings and industrial sites were damaged, he added.

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the power station - Europe’s biggest nuclear plant - stoking international fears of a catastrophe.

In his nightly video address on Monday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskky invoked the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine.

He called for new sanctions against Russia, accusing it of risking another nuclear disaster.

“We are actively informing the world about Russian nuclear blackmail,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin claimed that Ukraine’s military is attacking the plant and urged Western powers to force Kyiv to stop.

A Russian-installed official, in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, said an air defence system at the plant would be reinforced in the aftermath of last week’s shelling.

Evgeny Balitsky, head of the Kremlin backed administration, told Russian state TV that power lines and other damaged portions of the plant were restored.

“The plant is operating normally but, of course, with an increased degree of security,” Mr Balitsky said.

During recent weeks Ukraine has been mounting counter-attacks in Russian-occupied areas of the south of the country, while trying to hold off the Kremlin’s forces in the eastern Donbas region.