That's... concerning. I hope this doesn't start a chain of knee-jerk reactions that could lead to far more dire consequences. I can already hear western media screaming that Russians are genociding ukrainians with radioactive means, which might provoke outrage and push politicians to make dumb decision (though from what little I know, that increase shouldn't make that much of a difference).
The War in the Ukraine
- Thread starter SampanViking
- Start date
Lets look at the site before it got taken out.
This is an old and well known "target" and you're telling me Ukraine stashed their wartime ammo here knowing it can be targeted by cruise missiles and other air attacks? Sorry not buying it. Everybody thought a few weeks ago that Russia struck another ammo depot where S300 missiles were kept only to find out it was a storage depot for decommissioned SSN fuel a very well known "target."
Nobody here yet knows what this place was but it sure didn't blow up like an ammo depot because when ammo depots blow up it looks like this..
Ukraine is not stashing their wartime ammo in huge locations they have been scattered all over the country especially western supplied ammo. Also if there was radiation, they'd be evacuation a large chunk of the Oblast and media would be all over this especially twitter media.
The US has already confirmed that shaping operations for the main offensive have begun meaning all weapon systems and AMMO are in position not in storage depots in the west of Ukraine.
You all may now respond with laughs.
Ok, suppose you're right. What would you propose as a potential source for such a gigantic explosion then ? There's no way it's fuel because the picture doesn't show any suitable containers or tanks for it and Diesel cannot explode like that.
The picture doesn't show what's inside for all I know it could be filled with drums of chemicals or other fuels. The SSN solid fuel depot before the explosion if you look at the sat pic it resembles the sat pic of this place. This wasn't an ammo depot with tank and arty ammo inside the explosion would look much different. In a few days we'll likely know what this place was.
... and another update on the Bakhmut front:
Mikael Valtersson
NEWS UPDATE BAKHMUT LATE EVENING MAY 14
The Nest has fallen. I have also called the entire Citadel high rise area the Nest, but in Wagner vocabulary the Nest is the eastern part of the high rise area (purple lines). That is east of Levanevskogo Street. Today the Wagner forces took 9 more high rises. The sum is now 20 high rises taken by Wagner forces and 28 remaining under Ukrainian control.
This means that the frontline now goes at the Levanevskogo Street and the entire or nearly the entire Nest is cleared. I'm not sure about the high rise at the SW end of the Nest (1) and I'm neither sure if the shopping centre (2) south of the Nest and Yuvileyna Street are under Wagner control, so I put them in the green shaded contested zone.
You see the frontline in the photo where Ukrainian artillery fires at russian positions (48.591291, 37.968040) on the eastern side of Levanevskogo Street (blue line) and west of School No.12 (red line).
It seems that the Wagner forces have focused more on direct attacks on the Citadel area than many pundits thought. It is hard fighting in a city, much harder than many believe. But it's by no means impossible to attack a high rise compound. I saw many weaknesses in the Citadel area early and wrote some examples how I would attack.
The Wagner force seems to have some fine field commanders on the ground who can spot the same weaknesses and act on that knowledge. Respect to those fine soldiers. And at the same time respect to the Ukrainian soldiers who fight on even though their life must have been hell for some weeks.
No more large buildings has been demolished by the Ukrainian side. There seems to be a number of civilians left in the cellars under the buildings. That might be an important reason why UkrAF don't demolish more buildings than they have, or there might just be a lack of explosives and expertise.
On the rest of the front around Bakhmut Russian defence lines are holding. An Ukrainian attempt to advance on both side of the Berkhivsky reservoir from the recently captured areas (blue shade) was repulsed by a combination of RuAF and Wagner units. It might be that the Ukrainian counterattack was made with only local forces and that they have taken quite a lot of losses, albeit not so gigantic losses as the Russian side claims, that their immediate offensive power is spent.
Mikael Valtersson
NEWS UPDATE BAKHMUT LATE EVENING MAY 14
The Nest has fallen. I have also called the entire Citadel high rise area the Nest, but in Wagner vocabulary the Nest is the eastern part of the high rise area (purple lines). That is east of Levanevskogo Street. Today the Wagner forces took 9 more high rises. The sum is now 20 high rises taken by Wagner forces and 28 remaining under Ukrainian control.
This means that the frontline now goes at the Levanevskogo Street and the entire or nearly the entire Nest is cleared. I'm not sure about the high rise at the SW end of the Nest (1) and I'm neither sure if the shopping centre (2) south of the Nest and Yuvileyna Street are under Wagner control, so I put them in the green shaded contested zone.
You see the frontline in the photo where Ukrainian artillery fires at russian positions (48.591291, 37.968040) on the eastern side of Levanevskogo Street (blue line) and west of School No.12 (red line).
It seems that the Wagner forces have focused more on direct attacks on the Citadel area than many pundits thought. It is hard fighting in a city, much harder than many believe. But it's by no means impossible to attack a high rise compound. I saw many weaknesses in the Citadel area early and wrote some examples how I would attack.
The Wagner force seems to have some fine field commanders on the ground who can spot the same weaknesses and act on that knowledge. Respect to those fine soldiers. And at the same time respect to the Ukrainian soldiers who fight on even though their life must have been hell for some weeks.
No more large buildings has been demolished by the Ukrainian side. There seems to be a number of civilians left in the cellars under the buildings. That might be an important reason why UkrAF don't demolish more buildings than they have, or there might just be a lack of explosives and expertise.
On the rest of the front around Bakhmut Russian defence lines are holding. An Ukrainian attempt to advance on both side of the Berkhivsky reservoir from the recently captured areas (blue shade) was repulsed by a combination of RuAF and Wagner units. It might be that the Ukrainian counterattack was made with only local forces and that they have taken quite a lot of losses, albeit not so gigantic losses as the Russian side claims, that their immediate offensive power is spent.
How about a longer video and I'm not talking about mushroom cloud I'm talking about the cooking off that happens during the explosion when tank, arty and other shells blow up.
This was the Yemen Scud missile base
Yemen ammo storage
This is Kirkut 2004 US ammo depot where arty and other type of shells were stored
So it does look like no deplete uranium shells or other arty/ammo shells were there. Ukraine is not storing their wartime ammo in obvious storage facilities.