War in Ukraine

Probably one of the modified airplanes they put autonomous controls in to set off an explosion of that magnitude.

 

Maybe. But it doesn't take a lot of explosive power to set off munitions. Most of what you're seeing in that video are the Russian munitions blowing up, not the weapons hitting their targets.

 

An amazing video. The Estonian host was beside himself with joy just The big bang comes to Russia. According to the video , the weapons depot was 2sq mi and when it went up it triggered 2 earthquakes.
Has to put a hurtin’ on Russia’s ability to fight the war. A whole bunch of apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals are now safe for a while

 

I would add to that, stretching Russia's air-defense capabilities even further and making them less, not more, likely to consider actual use of nuclear weapons.

 

Some more details about the exploded ammunition depot: it contained Iskander missiles, Tochka-U tactical missiles, guided bombs and artillery ammo. The depot was in a city called Toropets. Seismic signals were detected by NASCAR * * in Norway from the explosion.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/18/europe/ukraine-russian-weapons-depot-drone-attack-intl/index.html

 

I agree, but you need enough explosive to penetrate those bunkers, and you need enough to trigger a critical mass for an explosion of that size. I really don’t believe one of Ukraine’s standard drones is capable of that.

 

This Russian, educated in Scotland, and now living in Thailand translated a notification that it was illegal to post photos or videos of the fires.

 

Russia claimed to have air defense systems in the area. I don’t know if that’s true or not but I suspect it is for an ammunition depot of that size. Hopefully the explosion took out those air defense systems.

 

You are assuming the Russians built bunkers. Bunkers are nice but graft is nicer.

 

It was described as a warehouse in the CNN article. Even if it was a bunker, if someone left a door open, you could send a drone in and take your chances it would light off something. I wonder how many troops were in and around the depot. The pressure wave from a blast like that could be deadly for a quarter to a half mile away or more.

 

He also said the latest round of conscriptions is being done electronically, not by personal service as was done in the past. Once you are that service list you can't leave Russia and you are considered served seven days after your conscription notice is posted.

 

Toropets is about 617 miles away from Ukraine, so maybe the Russians believed that there was safety in that distance, and they used a regular warehouse instead of a fortified bunker. It may have been a collection point for weapons from different manufacturers on their way to the front, and they did not have time or money to make a bunker (since they learned that Ukraine has long-range drones).

 

Russians have escaped the country before, and this time, there will be less people available to look for them, since some of the people rounding up conscripts have probably been conscripted themselves.

 

Another possibility is that the targets were munitions pulled out of storage for transportation the front.

 

Yeah, I hope.

 

This just made it a lot harder. They won't be buying plane and train tickets, at least not in their own names. Ivan was stuck at the border for 3 days when he fled Russia and that was before these restrictions.

 

I doubt that last part is true. I’ll bet that is one of the duties that goes the children of protected families. There’s still plenty of them around.

 

Well, they didn't get shot for allowing so many conscripts to escape last time, so there is no reason to look too hard this time.

 

Something else to consider is what a “bunker” means when it comes to munitions storage areas supposed to be deep from possible enemy contact, such as this one seemed to be. I’ve flown around several in my day out in California. Those bunkers are designed to contain an accidental explosion from causing the others to go up, not for protection from enemy attack. That might be the case here, too.

 

I don't know--looking at the video and reading about the earthquakes, it looks like everything blew sky high. It doesn't seem likely that even a good-sized drone would have enough firepower to knock down internal explosion-resistant barricades, but I could be mistaken. Either way, a hell of a shot.