A blaze has torn through an arms depot deep inside Russia, triggering explosions and the closure of a major highway, after Ukraine launched more than 100 drones overnight.
The depot appeared to be close to another that was struck by Ukrainian drones early on Wednesday, injuring 13 people and also causing a huge fire.
Russian authorities closed a 62-mile stretch of a highway and evacuated passengers from a nearby rail station on Saturday after the fire caused a series of explosions.
Posts on the messaging app Telegram said a missile depot was struck near the town of Toropets, in Russia’s Tver region about 240 miles north west of Moscow and about 300 miles from the Ukrainian border.
Unverified images circulating on Telegram showed a large ball of flame rising into the night sky and dozens of smoke trails from detonations.
An ammunition depot and missile arsenal in south-western Russia also caught fire in a separate attack on Saturday in the Krasnodar region, triggering evacuations after the blaze caused a series of blasts.
Videos on social media showed bright orange clouds rising over the horizon, as dull thuds of detonations sounded almost continuously.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed that its forces shot down 101 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory and occupied Crimea overnight. There were no immediate reports of casualties in either Russian region.
Meanwhile, a 12-year-old boy and two elderly women were killed as Russian missiles struck Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, overnight, governor Serhii Lysak said Saturday.
Mr Lysak said the missiles hit “in the middle of the night, when the city slept”, injuring three more people, destroying two buildings and damaging another 20.