A fire broke out in an important Russian oil depot near the Ukrainian border, Russian authorities said early Monday morning.
Social media accounts based in Russia’s Bryansk region shared pictures of their alleged two explosions and fire at the Transneft-Druzhba depot. The state subsidiary of the state oil export company operates one of the longest Russian oil pipelines to Europe.
Rescue services sent fire and rescue teams to the area around 2:00 p.m. Moscow time, the regional department of the emergency department said in a rejected statement.
They later told state news agencies that there had been no casualties and no plans to evacuate the population. Social media accounts in Bryansk showed thick clouds of smoke and rescue teams still arriving at the site even after the sun.
The rescue services told RIA Novosti that another site that refused to identify it was on fire
State television later said that the first place was a civilian facility with 10,000 tons of fuel and the second military facility with 5,000 tons.
It was not immediately clear whether the fire in the Transneft-Druzhba oil depot less than 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border was related to the war in Ukraine.
Military analyst Rob Lee said on Twitter that reports suggest that a military base with fuel tanks could be in second place. He indicated that the fires were the result of a tactical Tochka-U ballistic missile with a range that could achieve both targets if deployed near the Russian-Ukrainian border.
The Bryansk region is one of several border areas that declared a high level of “terrorist” threat this month, weeks after Russia launched a frivolous invasion of Ukraine. Two weeks ago, Russian officials accused Ukraine of sending helicopters to bomb a city in the southern Bryansk region 10 kilometers from the border.
