Russia: Saboteurs or Acts of Revenge? Strange fires are piling up

Russia: Saboteurs or Acts of Revenge?  Strange fires are piling up

A deadly fire at a research institute, fires at a munitions factory and two oil plants. Such incidents are increasing in Russia. Is it coincidence or targeted acts of revenge by Ukraine for the war of aggression?

In a huge country like Russia, a fire in a remote area usually doesn’t get much attention. In times of war, however, such events attract great attention. This was also the case recently on Wednesday last week when there was a fire in a chemical plant in Dzerzhinsk, east of Moscow.

Ever since the fire at a military research institute in Tver, northwest of Moscow, on April 21, which killed at least 17 people, online networks have treated every report of a fire somewhere in Russia as an act of Ukrainian sabotage. There are now more than a dozen of these fires.

So far, no one has claimed responsibility for the arson in any of the cases. However, observers do see signs that Kiev is attempting to bring the war into the country of the attackers in this way – for example in the case of fires in Briansk near Belarus, which broke out in plants for oil exports to Europe. They have “reliable” information that these fires were started by an attack by Ukrainian Bayraktar drones, wrote the anonymous analysts of Ukraine Weapons Tracker.

Ukraine speaks of “divine intervention”

The analysts regularly publish detailed reports and videos of attacks by both sides on their Twitter account. “If true, then this story once again proves the ability of Ukrainian forces to conduct attacks on Russian territory,” they wrote. “It was probably a Ukrainian attack, but we can’t be sure,” military expert Rob Lee told the British newspaper The Guardian about the fires in Briansk.

Mykhailo Podoliak, a key adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was silent, describing the fires in Briansk as “divine intervention”. “Large fuel depots burn regularly – for a variety of reasons,” he added.

“We do not confirm and we do not deny”

“Russian saboteurs against Putin continue their heroic work,” Ukrainian racing driver Igor Sushko commented on photos of the fires on Twitter. However, he did not provide any evidence of politically motivated arson. Zelenskyi adviser Oleksiy Arestovych made ambiguous statements to the US newspaper “New York Times”: “We do not confirm and we do not deny,” he said. And he added that Israel never admits to its covert attacks and assassinations.

The governors of the Russian oblasts of Kursk and Belgorod near the border report further drone and helicopter attacks as well as acts of sabotage on railway bridges, among other things. Two helicopters of the Ukrainian armed forces attacked a fuel depot in Belgorod on April 1, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel.

Munitions Factory or Oil Plants: Russian Saboteurs or Ukrainian Agents?  Strange fires are piling up in Russia

strategy against Russia

“There is no confirmation of Ukrainian sabotage – other than the fact that a lot of the fire hit military targets,” says Phillips O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. It seems that such attacks are part of Ukraine’s strategy in the fight against Russia.

Source: Stern

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