The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, on Friday accused the West of seeking war with Russia, and Moscow warned Washington against escalation against it from Ukraine, while the nature of the explosions that hit the Crimea and the Russian Belgorod region on Thursday remains ambiguous.
In statements he made before the announcement in Washington of additional military aid to Ukraine, Patrushev said that the West does not stop preparing for an open armed conflict with Russia.
The Russian official blamed Washington and London for a possible disaster at the Zaporozhye nuclear plant in Ukraine.
Simultaneously, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned Washington against escalation against Russia from Ukrainian territory, saying that the situation had become very dangerous.
Ryabkov said that his country wants to avoid the United States becoming a party to the conflict in Ukraine, and that Washington does not take Moscow's warnings seriously, adding that Russia is working with the United States on the situation in Ukraine at the highest levels.
For his part, the Russian ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, said that what he described as Washington's obsession with the sanctions policy prevents it from realizing the failure of its strategy towards Russia, as he put it.
The Russian embassy in Washington also issued a statement saying that what it described as Washington's irresponsible rhetoric encourages Kyiv to commit "crimes that will affect Europe for decades."
And the embassy said - in a statement - that the Ukrainian forces carried out 12 artillery and drone attacks on the territory of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, noting that these attacks resulted in 50 explosions.
In the same context, TASS news agency reported - quoting Russia's Civil Military Administration in the city of Energodar - that Ukrainian forces again bombed targets in the city close to the Zaporozhye nuclear plant.
For weeks, Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of targeting the station, which is within the scope of the confrontations between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
And the US Bloomberg Agency quoted European intelligence officials as saying that Russia would use the Zaporozhye nuclear plant as a cover to protect its forces from being targeted.
Crimean and Belgorod explosions
On the ground, it is not yet clear the nature of the explosions that occurred yesterday in different parts of the Crimea and in the Russian Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, amid speculation that they may have been caused by Ukrainian strikes.
In the far west, specifically in Sevastopol (the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet), at least 4 explosions occurred in an area near the Russian military airport of Belbek, according to Reuters, citing local sources.
As for the Far East of Crimea, the pro-Russian adviser to the Crimean president said that the air defense systems responded to threats in the airspace of the Kerch region, where the bridge connecting the peninsula and the Russian mainland is located.
The Kerch Bridge was built after Russia seized Crimea in 2014.
At the same time, Mikhail Razvogayev, the pro-Russian governor of Sevastopol, announced that the air defenses had shot down a Ukrainian drone.
These developments came after Ukrainian officials threatened to target Russian sites and facilities in the Crimea, including the Kerch Bridge.
Crimea is an important supply line for what Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a special military operation in Ukraine.
With Kyiv acquiring more sophisticated Western weaponry, Crimea is in the Ukrainian crosshairs.
Western media quoted Ukrainian sources as saying that Ukrainian forces had already bombed Russian military sites in Crimea.
In Russia's Belgorod (southwest) on the border with Ukraine, the provincial governor spoke of explosions in an ammunition depot, which prompted the authorities to evacuate two villages in the area.
Since the first weeks of the war, which Russia started on February 24, this Russian region has witnessed a series of explosions that targeted oil and military facilities.
A university in Kharkiv was bombed (Reuters)
Civilian victims
In other field developments, the Ukrainian administration in the Donetsk district of Donbass region (east) announced today that 5 civilians were killed and 10 wounded in Russian attacks during the past 24 hours.
In Kharkiv (northeast), 17 civilians were killed and dozens of others were injured in Russian shelling on Wednesday and Thursday, and 6 people were killed in similar shelling on the neighboring city of Krasnodar, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian officials also confirmed today that the cities of Mykolaiv and Nikopol (south) were subjected to Russian bombing.
The spokesman for the operations of the Southern Front of the Ukrainian army, Sergey Verachuk, said that the Russian army targeted several areas and neighborhoods in the city at dawn today.
Verachuk added that the Russian army targeted Mohylyanka University in Mykolaiv with several S-300 missiles, which led to great destruction in the facility, noting that the Ukrainian army carried out several attacks against Russian army positions and destroyed a number of systems. "S-300", and carried out successful raids on the positions of the Russian army in Pashtanka and Preslav.
In the context, the British Ministry of Defense said today that Russia continues its continuous bombing on the northeastern Kharkiv front to distract Ukrainian forces and prevent them from launching counterattacks in other areas.