On the night of 17–18 September 2024, during the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

launched a

drone attack Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakist ...

on the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate (GRAU) 107th arsenal ammunition depot in

Toropets Toropets (russian: Торо́пец) is a town and the administrative center of Toropetsky District in Tver Oblast, Russia, located where the Toropa River enters Lake Solomennoye. Population: History In 1074, when the town was first menti ...

, causing a massive series of explosions and fires and shattering of windows across nearby towns. The main explosion caused a 82m-wide crater and a

seismic wave A seismic wave is a wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth. It can result from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide, and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic energy. ...

of magnitude 2.5~2.8 on 18 September, 3:56am, local time. Such supply chain disruption could reduce Russia's firepower in its war effort in Ukraine.

Context

Following more than two years of war, Ukraine recently moved the conflict into Russian territories. On 6 August 2024, Ukraine launched an

incursion ''Incursion'' is a science fiction roleplaying game created by Richard Tucholka and published by Tri Tac Games in 1992. Overview The player characters are humans abducted by alien slave traders. Together, with other extraterrestrial slaves, ...

into

Kursk Oblast Kursk Oblast ( rus, Курская область, r=Kurskaya oblast, p=ˈkurskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Kursk. As of the 2010 Census, Kursk Oblast has a population ...

. Ukraine also argues with allies providing weapons for longer range munitions and the right to use them deeper into Russia with the purposes of attacking legitimate military targets used by Russia to attack Ukraine and putting political pressure on

Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has Russia under Vladimir Putin, served continuously as president or Prime Minis ...

. Claimed by Ukraine and led with domestically-manufactured airborne drones, this strike would aim at normalizing such in-depth attacks in order to ease allies' stances. Ukrainian representatives stated that more attacks of this kind are expected in order to “methodically” reduce Russia’s missile potential.

Target

Euronews Euronews (styled on-air in lowercase as euronews) is a European television news network, headquartered in Lyon, France. The network began broadcasting on 1 January 1993 and covers world news from a European perspective. The majority of Euron ...

reported that the military ammunition depot had been renovated in 2018, and that the Russian deputy defense minister claimed that "the site met the 'highest international standards' and could defend against weapons such as missiles and 'even a small nuclear attack.'" Euronews also reported that approximately 30,000 tonnes of military munitions were stored at the facility, including "fuel tanks, as well as missiles intended for Iskander and

Tochka-U OTR-21 ''Tochka'' (russian: оперативно-тактический ракетный комплекс (ОТР) «Точка» (" point"); en, Tactical Operational Missile Complex "Tochka") is a Soviet tactical ballistic missile. Its GRAU des ...

missile systems, guided aerial bombs and assorted artillery ammunition... Russia had also started to store North Korean munitions in Toropets."

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

reported that KAB missiles were also stored at the facility.

Depot contents

* Fuel tanks * Missiles and explosive warehouses * S300 missiles * Iskander tactical missile systems *

tactical missile systems * Guided aerial bombs /

KABs The German Mosquito Control Association (GMCA) conducts insecticide operations in the mosquito-infested floodplains of the Upper Rhine between Bingen and Offenburg. The work is carried out by helicopter and by backpack-sprayers. Technology The Ge ...

* North Korean

KN-23 KN-23 is a designation given to a North Korean solid-fueled tactical ballistic missile. Design Initial variant The KN-23 bears an external resemblance to the Russian Iskander-M and South Korean Hyunmoo-2B SRBMs, being distinguished by its el ...

missiles *

Artillery ammunition A shell, in a military context, is a projectile whose payload contains an explosive, incendiary, or other chemical filling. Originally it was called a bombshell, but "shell" has come to be unambiguous in a military context. Modern usage s ...

* North Korean munitions

Attack

Ukrainska Pravda ''Ukrainska Pravda'' ( uk, Українська правда, lit=Ukrainian Truth) is a Ukrainian online newspaper founded by Georgiy Gongadze on 16 April 2000 (the day of the Ukrainian constitutional referendum). Published mainly in Ukra ...

cited Ukraine's Security Service,

Defence Intelligence Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies ( MI6, GCHQ and MI5) in that it is an ...

and

Special Operations Force Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...

as the author of the nighttime attack. According to

Russian Defense Ministry The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (russian: Министерство обороны Российской Федерации, Минобороны России, informally abbreviated as МО, МО РФ or Minoboron) is the govern ...

, all of the 54 Ukrainian drones aimed at western Russian regions were successfully intercepted. According to

Igor Rudenya Igor Mikhaylovich Rudenya (russian: Игорь Михайлович Руденя; born on 15 February 1968), is a Russian statesman who is currently the 5th governor of Tver Oblast since 23 September 2016. He was the acting Governor on 2 March u ...

governor of Tver Oblast The Governor of Tver Oblast is the head of Tver Oblast, the federal subject of Russia. Governor is elected by the people of Tver Oblast for five years. The current governor is Igor Rudenya. List Timeline Elections 1995 , - ! Candidat ...

, debris of a successfully downed Ukrainian drone caused the fire, igniting the ammunition depot and the series of explosions. On 22 September 2024, media reported that Ukrainian drones had struck a second ammunition depot located south of Toropets, again causing a large fire.

Explosions

The attack resulted in multiple secondary explosions, the largest being an earthquake-magnitude blast. The blast wave spread up to and was estimated to have a

TNT equivalent TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a ...

of either 200 to 240 tons or 1.3 to 1.8 kilotons of high-explosives. Resulting fires were detected from NASA's fire monitoring systems as covering an area of approximately .

Consequences

, announced a partial evacuation of the town but that there were no serious injuries nor fatalities. Russian officials later reported that 13 people had been injured. However, according to pro–Russian milblogger Anastasia Kashevarova, hundreds of Russians may have been killed in the strike, with the facility's utility block alone accommodating 200 people. On 20 September, Colonel Kiviselg, head of the

Estonian Defense Forces The Estonian Defence Forces ( et, Eesti Kaitsevägi) are the unified military forces of the Republic of Estonia. The Estonian Defence Forces consist of the Estonian Land Forces, the Estonian Navy, the Estonian Air Force, and the paramilitary Esto ...

Intelligence Center, estimated that the strike had caused 30,000 tonnes of munitions to explode, the size of which he equated to 750,000 shells, adding that the strike destroyed two to three months of Russia's ammunition supply. The depot reportedly stored not only artillery shells, but also Iskander missiles,

ballistic missiles and

glide bomb A glide bomb or stand-off bomb is a standoff weapon with flight control surfaces to give it a flatter, gliding flight path than that of a conventional bomb without such surfaces. This allows it to be released at a distance from the target r ...

s and it is unclear if his

bomb damage assessment Bomb damage assessment (BDA), also known as battle damage assessment, is the practice of assessing damage inflicted on a target from a stand-off weapon, most typically a bomb or air launched missile. It is part of the larger discipline of combat ...

includes both missiles and artillery ammunition.

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=September 2024 2024 airstrikes September 2024 events in Russia Drone strikes in Russia 2024 disasters in Russia 2024 building bombings Building bombings in Russia Ukrainian airstrikes during the Russian invasion of Ukraine Ammunition depot bombings 2024 industrial disasters 2024 fires in Europe Attacks on military installations in 2024 Attacks on military installations in Russia Building and structure fires in Europe Industrial fires and explosions in Russia Building and structure collapses in 2024 Attacks in Russia in 2024 History of Tver Oblast Security Service of Ukraine