Heavy blows to Russia’s ammunition depots and logistics

The Russian army’s main missile and artillery directorate experienced a disaster this week. Already on Wednesday it seemed as if things could hardly get any worse: a Ukrainian attack, presumably with dozens of drones, destroyed a strategic ammunition depot near the town of Toropets. At the weekend, Kiev followed up with two more attacks. Two more depots exploded, one near Toropets, another in southern Russia.

There, near the medium-sized town of Tikhoretsk, “debris” from downed drones caused ammunition to catch fire, according to the Russian authorities. But even this euphemistic portrayal shows that the consequences were dramatic: officially, 1,200 people were evacuated, trains diverted and roads closed. All field work was banned in a ten-kilometer zone around the weapons depot. Further north, near Toropets, the M9 highway was closed over a hundred-kilometer section at the weekend.

Thousands of tons of ammunition

Even if it is not possible to determine exactly how much ammunition went up in flames, satellite images from NASA show large fires. Even in the first attack, there was talk of several tens of thousands of tons. The two depots that came under fire at the weekend are somewhat smaller, but still measure 2.6 and 1 square kilometers gross, according to the Ukrainian specialist media outlet “Defense Express”.

They were less well protected: while the Russian army in Toropets boasted a few years ago that the modernized facility could withstand a nuclear attack, the ammunition in the other two depots was at least partly in the open air. This made it easier to destroy them. Some Russian nationalists were so annoyed by this negligence that they suspected sabotage.

It remains unclear what weapons the Russians hid in their second depot near Toropets. The depot near Tikhoretsk, which also has a military airport, was considered an important stopover for ammunition flows from North Korea. The think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies documented at the beginning of the year that the depot had been greatly expanded. The Russians stored large stocks of the 2.5 million artillery shells that Pyongyang had delivered to Moscow there. The armed forces report that there were 2,000 tons of shells in the depot at the time of their attack, including from North Korea.

Ukrainian military experts and British intelligence assume that the attacks have a direct impact on the supply of the Russian front. The base in Tikhoretsk supplied missiles for the Donbass, the one near Toropets as well as rockets and glide bombs for the groups in Kursk and Kharkiv. The extensive facilities also contained important logistical infrastructure for central military transport by rail, which is now severely disrupted, at least in the short term.

The Ukrainians use their own weapons

The size of the explosions has sparked a debate among experts about what weapons Kiev used to attack the ammunition depots, which are 450 and 300 kilometers from the state borders. It was considered proven that unmanned aerial vehicles attacked in large numbers. However, it also raises the possibility that a newly developed rocket drone or a modified Neptune missile was used.

“We are doing this with our own capabilities and weapons,” stressed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday. With a swipe at his allies, he added that the results would be even better if they allowed Kiev to use its long-range weapons against Russian territory. The Western partner has been rejecting this for months, as some fear being drawn even deeper into the war.

Next week, Zelensky will fly to the USA to meet with Joe Biden and members of parliament, and possibly also with the two presidential candidates Harris and Trump. The demand to attack the Russian hinterland more effectively with modern American weapons will remain central to his work. Washington is likely to be watching closely that the Ukrainians are celebrating a series of successes with their own systems without the Russians reacting decisively.