A Russian air base deep behind the front lines in Crimea was damaged by several large explosions, killing at least one person, although it was not immediately clear whether it was targeted by a long-range Ukrainian missile strike.
Multiple videos on social media showed explosions and clouds coming from the Saki military base in Novofedorovka on Crimea’s west coast on Tuesday afternoon, raising questions about how a site more than 100 miles (160 km) from the front line could have been attacked. A senior Ukrainian official later appeared to claim responsibility without giving details.
The Russian Defense Ministry told the RIA Novosti news agency that the explosions occurred around 3:20 p.m. local time and that “several aviation munitions detonated” in a storage area. He said he was trying to determine the cause of the incident.
Russian tourists holidaying on nearby beaches can be seen walking away in fear. It is one of the few times the peninsula, occupied by Russia since 2014, has been directly affected by the recent fighting. Locals told a Russian news site that the explosions lasted for an hour.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-appointed head of occupied Crimea, said one person had died. He earlier recorded a video statement near the scene, with smoke billowing in the distance, saying ambulance crews and medics were on the scene.
Ukrainian officials have been slow to comment on the incident, but in the early evening an adviser to the president, Mykhailo Podoliak, appeared to suggest the strike could herald a new phase in the conflict.
Podolyak said Kyiv’s long-term goal is “the demilitarization of the Russian Federation.” He added: “The future of Crimea is to be the pearl of the Black Sea, a national park with unique nature and a world resort. Not a military base for terrorists. This is only the beginning.”
Ukraine’s defense ministry said it could not determine the cause of the explosions, but added sardonically that people should observe fire safety rules and “the ban on smoking in unspecified places”.
The air base where Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill landed en route to the Yalta Conference in February 1945 is too far — about 110 miles — from the front lines to be hit by conventional land-based Ukrainian missiles. However, it may be within the range of other systems with a longer range.
In the previous 24 hours, there had been growing speculation about Ukraine’s missile capabilities after the US confirmed for the first time that it had supplied Kyiv with long-range anti-radiation missiles used to strike air defense systems.
A Pentagon spokesman said Monday that the United States had previously delivered a number of weapons to Ukraine, but declined to say how many or what type. The weapons are widely believed to be the AGM-88 high-velocity anti-radiation (Harm) missile, the tail fin of which was leaked by Russian bloggers on Sunday. They are usually launched from an aircraft and have a maximum range of about 90 miles.
Over the past month, Ukraine has shown it is capable of striking deeper and deeper into Russian-controlled territory, using the Himars missile artillery, which has a range of about 50 miles.
However, there were other suggestions that the Saki base was hit by a guerrilla operation. Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-run publication Russia Today, appeared to suggest in a tweet that the explosions were caused by sabotage – although she later said the explosion was caused by “several munitions” detonating in the warehouse.
In later posts, Simonyan said there had been no missile strikes and added that claims that Kyiv forces could strike 300 km (186 miles) were “Ukrainian propaganda”. She advised people to “exhale and go to the beach”. However, other videos show traffic jams forming as people try to flee Crimea.
Saki Air Base is about 165 miles from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, prompting speculation that it may have been targeted by Neptune missiles previously used to knock out the Russian warship Moscow. The anti-ship missiles have a range of about 190 miles and can be used to strike ground targets.
A Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously, told the New York Times that an “exclusively Ukrainian-made device was used” in the attack. This could suggest that it is the Neptune, a cruise missile developed by Ukraine that was first put into service in the early phases of the war.
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Earlier on Tuesday, officials said at least three Ukrainian civilians had been killed and 23 wounded by Russian shelling in 24 hours, including in an attack not far from the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye nuclear power plant.
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentin Reznichenko said Russian forces fired more than 120 rockets at the town of Nikopol, across the Dnieper River from the headquarters, damaging several residential buildings and industrial sites.
The prime ministers of Estonia and Finland have called on other European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russian citizens, saying they should not be able to vacation in Europe while the Russian government wages war in Ukraine.
Kaja Kalas, the Estonian prime minister, said on Tuesday that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right” and that it was “time to end tourism from Russia now”, a day after a similar call by her counterpart in Finland, Sanna Marin .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went further in an interview with the Washington Post on Monday and called for a complete travel ban and expulsion of Russians who have moved west. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the idea was “irrational thinking.”
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