Munitions storage facilities exploded Tuesday near the Russian-held Saki airfield in Crimea, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed. There were no casualties from the blast in the Novofedorovka region in Crimea, and no aviation equipment was damaged, the ministry said.
"Measures are being taken to extinguish the fire and find out the causes," the ministry said in a statement.
The explosion occurred far from Crimea's resort area, and there were no victims or injured among tourists, the Association of Tour Operators of Russia told Tass.
Margarita Simonyan, editor of the Russian media outlet RT, tweeted that authorities suspect sabotage: "No harm done... We exhale and go to the beach."
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Latest developments:
►President Joe Biden will sign NATO ratification documents for Sweden and Finland. Twenty-three of NATO's 30 members have approved the additions. All members must approve for Sweden and Finland to join.
►Russia, blaming payment issues prompted by the latest round of EU sanctions, cut off the flow of oil in a pipeline that runs through Ukraine to refineries in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
►Estonia and Finland want European countries to stop issuing tourist visas to Russians. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Tuesday that “visiting Europe is a privilege, not a human right.”
Resistance brings chaos to occupied areas
Guerrilla forces loyal to Kyiv in occupied areas of southeastern Ukraine are attacking Kremlin-installed officials, blowing up bridges and trains and helping the Ukrainian military by identifying key targets in an effort to challenge Russia's grip on the region.
The resistance could erode Kremlin control and threaten Russia's plans to hold referendums aimed at annexing some areas of the country.
“Our goal is to make life unbearable for the Russian occupiers and use any means to derail their plans,” said Andriy, a 32-year-old coordinator of the guerrilla movement who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of not being fully identified.
Kherson, an occupied city of 500,000 people seized by Russian troops early in the war, has been openly discussed by Ukraine military leaders as a primary counteroffensive target. Guerrillas have repeatedly tried to kill Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Kherson region's Russia-backed temporary administration. His assistant, Pavel Slobodchikov, was shot and killed in his vehicle, and another official, Dmytry Savluchenko, was killed by a car bomb.
“The Russians were expecting that they would be met with flowers, but they faced the fact that most people consider themselves Ukrainians and are ready to offer resistance,” said Oleksii Aleksandrov, a businessman in the occupied southern port of Mariupol.
Russia says UN pulled plug on planned visit to nuclear plant
The Russian Foreign Ministry says Moscow agreed to an International Atomic Energy Agency visit to Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Enerhodar, Ukraine, on June 3, but the trip was canceled by U.N. officials because of security concerns. The U.N. and IAEA officials have warned that bombing in the area of the plant could lead to a nuclear disaster and have urged the combatants to allow an IAEA team into the plant.
Both sides have blamed the other for rocket attacks at the Russian-occupied plant.
"For our part, we are ready to provide the maximum possible assistance in resolving all organizational issues," the foreign ministry statement said.
Russia's old mines 'unreliable and unpredictable'
It is “highly likely” that Russia is deploying Soviet-era scatterable mines along its defensive lines in the eastern Donbas region, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said Monday.
One type of mine that Russia is likely using, the PFM-1 series, are “deeply controversial, indiscriminate weapons,” the ministry wrote.
Moscow deployed the same kind of mines during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s, where many children were allegedly maimed after mistaking the mines for toys. They’ve likely degraded in quality since then, the U.K. said, and would be “unreliable and predictable” if used in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Moscow last week shelled the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, which holds Europe’s largest nuclear plant. When asked about the attack, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “Any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing.”
Guterres said he fully supports the International Atomic Energy Agency in itsr effort to stabilize the plant and have access to the facility to exercise its mandate.
Contributing: The Associated Press
