Around 5: 24 on the morning of April 1, a fuel depot burst into flames in the Russian town of Belgorod, located less than 50 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
A video that circulated on social networks, which was verified by the BBC, showed what appeared to be the fall of some missiles on the facility as two helicopters, unleashing a series of explosions that ended in a huge ball of fire.
Some media reported, based on images from other videos, that two helicopters that seemed to be Mi-8 had overflown at low altitude other nearby towns in hours close to the explosions.
The regional governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, accused Ukraine for launching an attack on that facility, and shortly after, the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said that two Ukrainian helicopters Mi-24 had entered Russian airspace at an extremely low altitude and had “launched a missile attack on a civilian-type fuel depot” on the outskirts of Belgorod.
It was not the first time that suspicious explosions had occurred on Russian territory since the 24 February Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine. Just a few days before, the 13 March, several explosions were reported at an ammunition depot near Belgorod.
This time, however, was different, as As explained by Jonathan Beale, defense correspondent for the BBC, if the involvement of kyiv in the explosion was confirmed, it was the first time that Ukrainian aircraft crossed into Russian territory to attack a target.
But Despite Moscow’s accusations, kyiv did not assume any responsibility for the attack. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksandr Motuzyanyk claimed that Russia’s “aggression” was being repelled “on the territory of Ukraine”.
“That does not mean that Ukraine is responsible for all those catastrophes and all those events that occur on the territory of the Russian Federation. This is not the first time we have seen such accusations. So, dear friends, I am not going to confirm or deny that information” he pointed out.
Accidents or attacks?
Since then, numerous suspicious incidents have been reported on Russian territory.
Last 25 April, for example, the town of Bryansk, located about 155 kilometers northeast of the border with Ukraine, woke up to blackened skies due to a fire in a major oil pipeline. The regional governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, reported a fire in a fuel depot, but did not explain the causes.
There have also been explosions near Russian military installations and even in an institute of military research in the city of Tver, near Moscow.
No one knows the exact figure, but the media have reported more than a dozen of these events.
“They have occurred in different parts of the country. They have happened in research centers, in facilities usually linked to the military and other strategic production centers , so it seems quite obvious that these explosions are not they are a coincidence”, Matthew Orr, Eurasia analyst at Rane, a geopolitical risk analysis consultancy based in Houston, told BBC Mundo.
The Analysts believe that some of these incidents may have been caused by the powerful Turkish-made Bayraktar drones that Ukraine has and that, in other cases, it may be infiltration operations of that country’s intelligence units inside Russian territory.
However, kyiv still neither acknowledges nor denies its involvement in these incidents.
Why?
Strategic ambiguity
Those responsible for the government of Volodimir Zelensky have avoided clarifying what they know about these incidents, although without ceasing to show a certain satisfaction with them.
“Belgorod , ‘Movska’, Bryansk. Constant ‘production incidents’. How can we not believe in karma for the death of children in Ukraine? However, many are still willing to close their eyes to the financing of terrorism by buying Russian oil. But should the European Union depend on a country where everything is self-destructing?” wrote Mykhaylo Podolyak, a Zelensky adviser, in a message posted on Twitter last week 25 of April.
Belgorod, “Moskva”, Bryansk. Constant “production incidents”. How can we not believe in karma for the murder of 🇺🇦children? Many are still willing to turn a blind eye to financing terrorism by But should 🇪🇺 depend on a country where everything is self-destructing? , 675
Ukraine’s deputy interior minister, Anton Gerashchenko, has also made references to these incidents, but resorting to irony. Thus, in a Twitter message he posted a “no smoking” message together or to an image of the fire at the fuel depots in Bryansk.
To date, the most direct response offered by any Ukrainian official on these incidents was given by Oleksei Arestovych, an adviser to the chief of Zelensky’s cabinet.
“We do not confirm and we do not deny. After what has been happening, we officially don’t say yes and we don’t say no, just like Israel,” Arestovych said in a recent interview with The New York Times referring to the policy of “strategic ambiguity” that Israel has maintained for decades around its nuclear weapons program.
As Matthew Orr explained to BBC Mundo, Ukraine gains more advantage by maintaining uncertainty on this issue.
“One can assume that possibly some of these attacks are being carried out with the help of the Ukrainian Intelligence Service and they do not see the need to give more visibility to this issue because they don’t want Russia to use these explosions to justify an escalation of the war”, he points out.
He explains that from an informative point of view it is more valuable for the Ukrainians to say that this is not being executed by them, but by people in Russia who sympathize with the situation in kyiv and who want to sabotage the war launched by Putin.
Orr indicates that it is not surprising that Ukraine executes actions on Russian territory because that country has been working for years to have intelligence, sources and capabilities there. “It would be unwise for them not to use those resources now,” he says.
Threats and escalation
The recurrence of these incidents has not gone down well with Moscow, which has threatened retaliation.
“The Russian Army is ready to execute retaliatory attacks against decision-making centers in kyiv using high-precision weapons,” the Russian Defense Ministry warned last week, accusing the United Kingdom of “provoking” Ukraine to carry out attacks against Russian territory.
For his part, Putin’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov accused NATO of being engaged in a “proxy war” against Russia and warned that the weapons delivered by the West to Ukraine are “a legitimate target”. scam” for Russian forces.
The official accused the West of “pouring gasoline on the fire” by supplying Ukraine with weapons and warned that the conflict could lead to a third world war.
But can these incidents on Russian territory lead to an escalation of the conflict?
Experts such as Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the political analysis consultancy R. Politik, have pointed out that attacks on Russian soil can increase support for the war in that country.
“Society Russia is not ready for peace. Russian society hopes that Ukraine will be defeated. Everything that comes from Ukraine, like the attacks on Russian territory, only feeds those feelings,” Stanovaya told The Washington Post.
Matthew Orr, for his part, does not believe that these incidents will be the cause of an escalation, not even if kyiv admitted being behind these explosions.
“It would not be something decisive, but it could be part of the argument that Russia uses to escalate, but it would only be one more element”, he says.
“Russia is already using ballistic missiles to destroy the railways, factories, roads, bridges and all kinds of infrastructure in Ukraine, so this would basically amount to Ukraine doing the same thing but quietly and more limited. So this would only lead to an escalation if Russia decides to use it as an argument to escalate”, he adds.
In any case, it is not yet proven that Ukraine is behind of all these incidents and, in fact, there are experts who consider that probably only a limited part of these correspond to actions of the Ukrainian forces.
William Alberque, director of Strategy, Technology and Arms Control at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank based in the United Kingdom, has highlighted that Russia is mobilizing weapons and ammunition on a large scale for what is there may have been accidents caused by problems of negligence and corruption between the Russian forces and that Ukraine has taken advantage of allowing responsibility to be attributed to it for those incidents.
“Even when explosions may be caused by negligence, they’re content to wink and nod and let the world think they’re the result of special ops. And the Russians are happy in some cases to blame the Ukrainians instead of admitting that the blame could lie with acts of corruption committed by civil authorities or Russian military,” Alberque said in an interview with Radio Free Europe.
The expert added that he has no doubts that the Ukrainians are carrying out sabotage actions against Russia and trying to hit all the Russian fuel and ammunition depots they can, but stated that it would be a mistake to attribute to kyiv each fire or explosion that occurred in Russia.
But whether these incidents are acts of sabotage or accidents due to negligence or corruption, They also fulfill the function of raising the morale of the troops and the population in Ukraine, where, according to geopolitical expert Peter Zeihan, “the Russian military have already abandoned all hope that Ukrainian citizens will receive them as liberators or as Slavic cousins” .
Thus, in these circumstances, the strategic ambiguity of the Zelensky government allows it to benefit take care of any setback suffered by the Russian forces.
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