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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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New videos appear to show a fire raging in northern Crimea, after reports of explosions around a military airfield overnight.
Footage widely circulated on social media by Russian and Ukrainian sources early on Wednesday show bright flashes of light and explosions, with sirens wailing in the background. A local Telegram channel reported "several loud explosions," starting just before 4 a.m. local time, before a fire broke out. Roads around the air base are blocked, the channel later reported.
Dzhankoy is a major military hub, home to one of Russia's largest airfields in Crimea. It is a key location for supplying Russian troops up through Moscow-controlled southern Ukraine and the frontlines of fighting on the mainland. Russia annexed Crimea back in 2014.
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Open-source intelligence accounts said on Wednesday that Russian forces used the airfield as a base for attack helicopters and anti-aircraft missile systems. Several reports suggest Ukrainian forces may have struck the facility, but Kyiv has not commented.
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukrainian military for comment via email.
Earlier this month, pro-Ukrainian partisans operating in Crimea said they had detected a "build up" of air defense systems on the peninsula, including at Dzhankoy. The Atesh group said additional anti-aircraft missile systems around the Dzhankoy airfield were "not camouflaged in any way."
In February, the partisan group said it had observed new Russian soldiers arriving in Dzhankoy, including combat medical units and what appeared to be members of the Russian mercenary organization, the Wagner Group.
In March 2023, Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the GUR, said a stockpile of Russian Kalibr long-range cruise missiles was destroyed in Dzhankoy after an "explosion." Russian forces had been transporting the missiles by rail at the time, Kyiv said.
Russian airbases in Crimea have been targeted by Kyiv in the more than two years of all-out war. Earlier this year, Ukraine's air force said it had launched missile strikes on the Belbek airfield close to the port city of Sevastopol on Crimea's western edge.
In August 2022, a string of explosions at the Saky air base in western Crimea damaged numerous Russian warplanes at the site.
Update 4/17/24, 3:55 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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