In recent weeks, heavy fires have broken out in several places in Russia in places of strategic importance to the Russian army. In Tver, a city northwest of Moscow, 20 people were killed in a fire at an Air Force research institute, according to local authorities. Southwest of the capital, an ammunition depot caught fire. And closer to the Russian-Ukrainian border, in the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, large plumes of smoke hung over fuel depots.
In Russia, fires break out more often due to outdated wiring and gas leaks, but the incidents are now so numerous that there seems to be a deliberate act. Many fingers point to Ukraine.
Russia has blamed Ukraine for one of the fires. Ukrainian helicopters attacked a fuel depot in Belgorod last month, according to the Kremlin. A video shows helicopters flying over the depot just before it catches fire.
But Russia says it is still investigating the cause of most incidents. The Ukrainian authorities are not commenting on the fires.
Missiles and drones
It is known that Ukraine has the ORT-21 Totchka, a missile system with a range of more than 100 kilometers. Military analysts recognized the sound of a missile just before an explosion on a video from Bryansk. Ukraine also has attack drones that can fly into Russia. Last week, the governor of Russia’s Kursk province said Russian air defense forces shot down two Ukrainian drones.
But the missiles and drones cannot be responsible for all fires: numerous fires took place deep in Russia, well beyond the reach of Ukrainian weapons.
For example, a munitions factory that caught fire on Sunday is in Perm, about 1,500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Two people died in the blaze, authorities said. Eyewitnesses told local media that the factory caught fire after a heavy explosion. The factory made explosives for missile systems and tanks used by the Russian army in Ukraine.
Also the Kremlin-promoting publishing house Prosveshchenije (meaning ‘enlightenment’) is east of Moscow and thus far out of reach of Ukrainian missiles and drones. According to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, book warehouses measuring 34 thousand square meters went up in flames on Tuesday. Since the beginning of the war, the publishing house had been trying to cleanse schoolbooks of ‘inappropriate references’ to Ukraine.
Secret purges
Just before the fire, three dissident employees of the publishing house had informed critical media about the secret purges. They argued against the site media zone that they should adapt schoolbooks in such a way that Ukraine does not appear to be an independent country. Kyiv should not be named as the capital of Ukraine and images of the Ukrainian flag should be deleted. However, Ukraine may still be mentioned in schoolbooks as an area liberated by the Red Army in the war against Nazi Germany. Several of the publishing house’s employees have been fired for criticizing the Kremlin’s policies, the dissidents said.
Russia and Ukraine have both taken steps to track down saboteurs since the invasion began. According to critical media, people of Ukrainian nationality in Russia are subject to police checks. The Russian security service FSB says it has arrested a group of ‘terrorists’ who would prepare an assassination attempt on a well-known presenter of Russian state television. Ukraine criminalized denial of Russian aggression and dissemination of Russian propaganda. In the besieged province of Kharkiv alone, the Ukrainian police have said they have arrested 400 people on suspicion of collaboration with Russia.
Analysts are taking into account that some fires in Russia are not the work of Ukrainian saboteurs, but of domestic opponents of the war. They also point to arson attacks at military recruitment agencies. The bureaus often store lists of Russian youths who have to fulfill their military service. Russia has admitted conscripts have been deployed in Ukraine’s ‘special military operation’. Arson with Molotov cocktails at recruitment agencies in several Russian villages destroyed documents about the upcoming batch of recruits, according to reports on Telegram channels.