2017 ammunition dump explosion: Ukraine accuses Russian intelligence
The explosion of a military ammunition depot near Kalynivka, Ukraine, on September 27, 2017. AFP
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The Ukrainian authorities consider that Russian military intelligence is the explosion of a huge stockpile of ammunition that occurred four years ago in the west of the country.
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With our correspondent in Kiev
,
Stéphane Siohan
In September 2017, a series of explosions ravaged
the Kalynivka ammunition warehouse
for four days
, near Vinnytsia, in western Ukraine.
It is one of the largest stocks of armaments of the Ukrainian army, then at war for three years with Russia in the Donbass.
Tens of thousands of projectiles, mainly intended to equip tanks are kept on the site.
The explosion caused no casualties, but resulted in the evacuation of 30,000 people.
This is the second explosion of military stock to occur that year.
On Monday September 27, four years after the events, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, Iryna Venediktova, announced that the prosecution had accumulated sufficient evidence to prove that the explosion in Kalynivka was caused by an act of terrorism, suspecting the GRU , Russian military intelligence.
Ukrainian justice requested international legal assistance from investigators in Prague who investigated the explosion of two warehouses in the Czech Republic in the fall of 2014. It had resulted in the death of two people, and a
serious diplomatic crisis between Prague and Moscow
.
Bulgaria also suspects six Russian nationals of being responsible for at least four explosions, the most recent of which took place in 2015 and 2020. In any case, it seems that the alleged sponsors wanted to cut off deliveries of weapons to the Ukrainian army.
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Russia
Ukraine
Intelligence
Terrorism