Footage widely shared on social media shows a massive fireball erupting over a Russian airbase, reportedly hosting tactical and strategic bombers, including Su-24 Combat Jets.
A fire broke out at the Marinovka military airfield in the southwestern Volgograd region after Ukrainian forces fired a barrage of drone strikes as Kyiv continues its Kursk offensive.
Multiple explosions were reported at Marinovka, a Russian Aerospace Forces air base in the village of Oktyabrsky in the Kalachevsky district.
Hours after last night’s Ukrainian drone attack, Russia’s Marynivka military airfield in Volgograd continues to detonate.
This airfield, located in the Kalachevsky district of Volgograd is (or was) home to Su-24MR frontline reconnaissance aircraft. pic.twitter.com/mWcGhufB0t
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) August 22, 2024
Data from NASA fire satellites, which monitor Earth for forest blazes, showed fires breaking out around the air base, where fighter jets were previously seen parked.
Residents of Kalach-on-Don, a town in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast, reported hearing drones and explosions in the sky, according to Pravda.
Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment by email.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
Andrei Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said Thursday that a “defense ministry facility” was on fire after being attacked by drones in the area of Marinovka.
The Russian defense ministry claimed up to 28 drones were launched across Russia by Ukraine in the attack.
“Most of the drones were destroyed. As a result of the UAV crash, a fire broke out on the territory of a defense ministry facility,” Bocharo said.
Marinovka is about 300 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border and roughly the same distance west from the border with Kazakhstan.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Sumy in the northeast of Ukraine on Thursday in his first visit to the border area since his troops entered Russian territory more than two weeks ago. The daring military operation is the largest attack on Russia since World War II.
Efrem Lukatsky/AP
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces have claimed control of another settlement in the Russian region of Kursk and taken more Russian prisoners of war whom he hopes to exchange for captured Ukrainians.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Thursday that its military has seized control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region.
It comes after Russian air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow in what the Kremlin described as “one of the largest” drone attacks ever against the capital.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has warned of an increased risk of Russian missile and drone attacks across Ukraine in the coming days as the country prepares to mark 33 years since its independence from the Soviet Union on Saturday.
Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said earlier this week that Russia had launched 9,600 missiles and 14,000 drones during strikes on Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Elina Beketova, Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), told Newsweek: “Since the beginning of June, more than 2,000 Russian strikes have been launched from Kursk Oblast on Sumy Oblast in Ukraine, using 255 guided aerial bombs and over 100 missiles.”
Do you have a story Newsweek should be covering? Do you have any questions about this story? Contact LiveNews@newsweek.com
