Ukraine said Russia destroyed homes in the southeast and knocked out power in many places with a new round of missile attacks as the West imposed a price cap on Russian marine oil to help Moscow finance its offensive. Attempts can be made to limit the capacity of
A new barrage had been expected for several days and came on the day the emergency blackouts were due to end, with previous damage repaired. The attacks plunged parts of the country into freezing darkness again, with temperatures now below zero across Ukraine.
They reported explosions overnight at two airports inside Russia hundreds of miles from Ukraine. One of them, the Engels base in the Saratov region, houses bomber aircraft that are part of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces.
State news agency RIA said three people were killed when a fuel tanker exploded at the airport in Ryazan, 185 km (115 miles) southeast of Moscow.
Saratov’s regional governor, Roman Basargin, reassured residents that they were safe after reports on social media of a “loud bang and flash” at Engels Air Base.
“Information about incidents at military facilities is being checked by law enforcement agencies,” he said without elaborating.
Engels Base, about 730 km (455 mi) south of Moscow, is one of two strategic bomber bases that house Russia’s air-delivered nuclear capability, consisting of 60–70 aircraft.
Previous mysterious explosions have damaged weapons stores and fuel depots in Russian territories near Ukraine and shot down at least seven warplanes in Crimea, which Russia annexed to Ukraine in 2014.
Less than two months after President Vladimir Putin drove a Mercedes across a bridge linking southern Russia to Crimea on Monday, it was also hit by an explosion.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for any of the blasts, saying only that such incidents are “karma” for Russia’s invasion.
“If something is launched into the airspace of other countries, sooner or later the unidentified flying objects will return to (their) departure point,” Mykhailo Podolić, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, wrote on Twitter on Monday.