A fire at a Proletarsk fuel depot in the Rostov region, along with more than 70 individual tanks, has yet to be extinguished by a Ukrainian drone strike on Sunday morning. It said of the new attack on Friday that Ukraine allegedly tried to spread the fire to tanks full of kerosene that were still unburnt. Ukraine has not commented on the incident.
However, for some time now, the country has been targeted by Russia, targeting infrastructure and energy facilities used for military purposes, for example through drone strikes. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attacks as “mere” retaliation for attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure. Proletarsk is 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
The priests prayed
Russian officials did not comment on Friday’s drone strike. The Russian Defense Ministry announced overnight Ukrainian drone strikes in the Belgorod and Kursk regions – Rostov was not mentioned. Rostov region authorities have declared a state of emergency for Proletarsk district. After Sunday’s fire, the governor of the Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, announced that the fire at the premises of an industrial plant was ignited by falling debris after an air defense drone repelled an attack.
According to the BBC, Russian Orthodox priests visited the scene three days after the fire. Local priests prayed near the fire trucks and blessed them. They brought an icon to the scene to support the firefighters.
“(The priests, note) spoke to the firefighters and blessed all the firefighting equipment,” the local Volgodonsk Eparchy – the Russian Orthodox Church’s equivalent of a diocese – told Reuters.
“Don’t Panic”
State news agency TASS reported last Wednesday that 47 firefighters were injured in the fire. More than 500 fire brigade lights were said to have extinguished the blaze on Wednesday. Local officials told RIA news agency that 20 of the 74 storage tanks caught fire. There was no word on how many other people were burned as a result of Friday’s attack.
Authorities declared a state of emergency after the first attack, but local city administration said there was no danger of the fire spreading to residential areas, Russian state media said, and people should not panic, the BBC reported. reported on Wednesday.
ISW: Russia transfers soldiers from Ukraine
Otherwise, Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine will not go as planned. According to experts, the western Russian region of Kursk is the first time Moscow has withdrawn troops from its invaded neighbor due to an advance by Ukrainian troops.
The Russian military leadership has moved at least isolated troops from the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzia to bolster defenses in Kursk, the US think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote. ISW refers to posts of recruited soldiers on social networks.
However, Russia is trying not to weaken its main axis of attack in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Officially, Kiev did not provide any new information about the progress in Russia. According to the Russian exile media portal Medusa, fierce fighting is taking place on the route between the small Ukrainian-held town of Shuja and the regional capital Kursk, and around the strategically important city of Korenzhevo. . On the other hand, Russia continued its advance in the Donetsk region.
Kursk: Russian conscripts captured
According to media reports, several Russian conscripts were captured or missing during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kursk region. At least 81 conscripts are missing and 38 identified as prisoners in videos released by the Ukrainian military, the BBC’s Russian-language service reported.
At the start of his war of aggression against Ukraine, Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin promised that only contract troops and volunteers would be stationed on the battlefield. However, from the Kremlin’s point of view, the defense of Kursk is not considered to be participating in a “special military operation”.
Officially, Russia has not provided any information about its losses in Kursk. However, at least two conscripts are known to have died in fighting since early August. The actual number is likely to be much higher. The BBC’s data on missing conscripts is based on internet search reports from relatives of recruits who have had no contact with them since the start of the Ukrainian offensive.
It will inevitably become a political problem
According to media reports, conscripts from other regions are to be transferred to Kursk. The military leadership in Moscow hopes it can continue its offensive in Ukraine and not have to withdraw many professional soldiers from the invaded country. The risk for the Kremlin, however, is that the country’s support for the war could quickly wane if there are high casualties among conscripts.
Abdi Aladinov, the commander of the Chechen Akhmat special unit, has already dismissed criticism that Russia does not need young men who are not ready to defend the country.
