Ukraine’s Tver ammo depot attack featuring jet drones lowers Russian threat to Baltics

Last night, Ukrainian drones successfully attacked the so-called 107th GRAU Arsenal next to Toropets town in Russia’s Tver Oblast 480 km north of Ukraine. The GRAU stands for the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

A source from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told several Ukrainian media that drones were operated by Ukraine’s SBU, Military Intelligence, and Special Operations Forces, and targeted the site containing missiles for Iskander and Tochka-U systems, guided KAB bombs, and artillery ammunition.

“The SBU, together with its colleagues from the Defence Forces, continues to methodically reduce the enemy’s missile potential, which it uses to destroy Ukrainian cities. We are working further to organize a similar ‘picture’ at other Russian military facilities working for the war against Ukraine,” the source said, according to public broadcaster Suspilne.

Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council, stated that the attacked depot in Tver Oblast could have stored ammunition for BM-21 Grad systems, S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, as well as… pic.twitter.com/08N4QiGLpz

— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) September 18, 2024

Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation under the National Security and Defense Council, stated that the attacked depot in Tver Oblast could have stored ammunition for BM-21 Grad systems, S-300 and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, as well as ballistic missiles for Iskander and North Korean KN-23 missiles.

Military expert Tatarigami wrote on X/Twitter:

“My team at Frontelligence Insight has documented that this depot actively supplied various ammo, including 122mm rockets for BM-21 Grad, 82mm shells, and 7.62 between 2022 and 2024,” he said, adding: “Without exaggeration, this is a very significant achievement. We’re likely looking at the loss of thousands of tons of explosive materials, shells, and rockets. In events of this magnitude, replacement can’t be quick.”

NASA FIRMS’ online map of wildfires revealed extensive thermal anomalies throughout the facility:

Russian propaganda on the depot and today’s assault

Many accounts on social media shared a Russian news segment from 2018, in which then Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov, who’s currently under arrest for corruption in Russia, visited a new missile storage facility made of concrete warehouses at the Toropets ammunition depot.

“It provides reliable and safe storage, protects against air and missile strikes and even the defeat factors of a nuclear explosion,” Bulgakov said, adding that the arsenal met “the highest world standards.”

The propaganda did not stop in 2018.

Last night, despite video evidence of multiple large-scale fires at the facility and one particularly powerful explosion, Tver governor Igor Rudenya claimed that Russia’s air defenses shot down Ukrainian drones and “a fire” started due to debris crash. He commented at about 3:30 a.m.:

“A fire started in Toropets, Tver Oblast, as a result of the fall of UAV debris in the course of repelling an attack by air defense forces,” his Telegram account wrote, later adding:“[T]he fire is being extinguished at the site where UAV wreckage fell, air defense forces continue to repel the mass attack of drones in the sky above the city. To ensure the safety of residents, the Governor […] decided to partially evacuate the population from the territory where the air defense forces are working and the fire is being localized.”

At about 10:30, Rudenya’s Telegram channel shared a video showing the official in Toropets, repeating the same theory about a drone-crash fire, with the sounds of continuing secondary detonations in the background.

Thirteen people were allegedly injured in the drone attack on Tver Oblast, as claimed by the Russian state-funded news agency RIA Novosti. They were said to be hospitalized in moderate condition, according to the Ministry of Health. However, Tver Oblast Governor Igor Rudenya asserted that there were no “seriously injured” individuals.

Toropets depot’s strategic significance

The facility is situated at the northwestern edge of the Moscow Military District. The depot covers an area of approximately 8 km² and is about 100 km from the Belarusian border and roughly 200 km from Latvia. Within 15 and 35 kilometers, there are two older facilities to store missiles, yet the operational missiles could have been transferred from them to the new concrete bunkers at the Toropets depot.

In a sense, the Toropets depot resembles the infamous Cobasna ammo depot in Moldova’s Russian-occupied Transnistria, which served under the USSR as a primary storage facility for the southern Soviet armies, aimed at sustaining the Soviet invasion of southern Europe. At the same time, the Toropets depot is eight times larger than Cobasna’s.

This year, Ukraine has intensified its drone attacks against the military and fuel facilities within Russia, significantly disrupting fuel and ammunition supplies crucial for the Russian military.

Palianytsia missile-drone might have been used

One of the videos shared by Toropets locals features the sound of the Ukrainian drone, flying over. This is definitely not the propeller-driven Liutyi or Bober long range drones – the work horses or the Ukrainian special services for such strikes, which have a “moped-like” engine sound. A jet engine can be clearly heard in the video:

One of the videos shared by Toropets locals features the sound of the Ukrainian drone, flying over.

This is definitely not the Liutyi or Bober's "moped-like" engine, but some kind of a jet engine.

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