Watch video as Ukraine wipes Russian weapons depot ‘off the face of the earth’

KYIV — Ukraine carried out a destructive drone attack against a critical Russian missile site northwest of Moscow, its security service said Wednesday.

A senior Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) official told POLITICO that Kyiv’s forces struck deep inside Russian territory, around 1,000 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border, wiping “off the face of the earth a large warehouse of the main missile and artillery department” belonging to the Russian defense ministry.

Videos from the scene in Toropets, a town in Russia’s Tver region, provided by the SBU to POLITICO, showed a giant, fiery mushroom cloud as the depot blew up.

“Russians store missiles for tactical missile complexes Iskander, Tochka-U, as well as other anti-aircraft missiles, glided bombs, and artillery munition in that warehouse. They used those munitions to attack Ukraine,” the SBU official said after being granted anonymity to speak freely about details of the operation.

“After our drones arrived at their destination an extremely powerful detonation began. Locals were wondering if that was a nuclear bomb blast or not,” the official added. “Now there’s a fire burning on a six-kilometer-wide area.”

Tver Governor Igor Rudenya announced an evacuation from districts of Toropets located near the warehouse. “The fire started in Toropets, as a result of the fall of UAV debris during the repulse of an attack by air defense forces,” Russia state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti reported, citing Rudenya.

In 2018, the Russian defense ministry reported that a missile warehouse near Toropets meets the highest international standards of cover from any type of “external influence,” allowing it to keep missiles and other munitions without any threat to the local population and environment.