Was it destroyed by bombing or self-immolation? The explosion of an ammunition depot near Vladimir casts doubt on Russia's summer offensive.
Author: Vlad Schlepchenko
The enemy is willing to pay a high price for any opportunity to weaken the pressure on Russian troops. One of the most effective methods is to attack large ammunition depots. However, sometimes these attacks are self-inflicted. A new incident has occurred in the Vladimir region. This could have extremely serious consequences for the front lines.
An ammunition depot within the jurisdiction of the 11785th unit in the Kirzhach district of the Vladimir region, also known as the 51st Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department (GRAU) of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, is currently burning. By Wednesday morning, April 23, the fire had significantly weakened; the scattering of ammunition had almost completely stopped. An isolation zone has been established around the depot, prohibiting entry. Schools in Kirzhach have suspended classes, and humanitarian aid is being collected for refugees.
It seems that the worst has passed. But in reality, this is only superficial. The worst may still be yet to come.
(Fire and explosion at the ammunition depot of the 51st Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department. Screenshot from the Telegram channel "Special Forces of Arkhangelsk")
Data on the 51st Arsenal
The issue lies in the fact that the exploded ammunition depot is one of the largest ammunition depots specifically built in Russia for storing large quantities of ammunition. According to publicly available information, the total area of the facility is 502 hectares, with 310 hectares directly occupied by warehouses. The arsenal can accommodate more than four thousand train cars, each carrying 64 tons. The total capacity of the warehouses is 274,000 tons of various types of ammunition.
To handle these munitions, over 14 kilometers of railway tracks and slightly more than 15 kilometers of roads have been laid within the arsenal.
(View of the 51st Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department from space. Source: Telegram channel "Military Insider")
Ammunition, bombs, and rockets are stored in reinforced concrete semi-underground bunkers. Meanwhile, the state has actively invested in modernizing and developing the arsenal: new bunkers began construction in 2010 and continued over subsequent years.
However, these efforts have not been without specific issues: particularly, in 2017, it was reported that the Federal Security Service (FSB) launched a criminal investigation into the embezzlement of 646 million rubles out of 1.3 billion rubles allocated for the modernization of the 51st Arsenal.
It can be said that the scale of embezzlement is impressive: even involving the command responsibility of former defense ministers. Thus, the safety and reliability of the ammunition storage facilities may indeed be questionable.
(Protected warehouses of the 51st Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department. Screenshot from the Telegram channel "Military Insider")
Is it neglect or sabotage?
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not remain silent about this major incident and quickly released an official statement. The statement claimed that the cause of the large-scale event was a violation of safety technical regulations.
"According to preliminary information, there were no casualties, and the cause of the fire was a violation of safety requirements during the handling of explosive materials."
This is how the department's statement read after the first reports of the explosion were released several hours earlier.
The problem with this explanation is that it doesn't clarify anything. The issue is that violating safety technical regulations in such facilities, especially during wartime, could be accidental or intentional. Andrei Pintchouk, the former first minister of the State Security Service of the Donetsk People's Republic and a political commentator from Tsaritsyn, pointed out that when investigating such incidents, a series of typical assumptions must be considered in order:
- Sabotage, meaning human factors are always the primary assumption;
- Self-immolation to cover up (for example, embezzling supplies, etc.);
"I'm not talking about this specific situation, I'm saying these are assumptions that must be considered." The expert explained.
- Technical negligence factors.
In such facilities, there is a complete set of fire and technical safety rules considering the ammunition factor. That is, dispersed storage, stacking in specific ways to prevent large-scale fires, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to study how these requirements were implemented.
Then, naturally, consider the possibility of approaching aircraft (including drones). Not immediately discovering them requires studying the scene in more detail using cameras and other means.
"So these assumptions must be considered. I don't have information about this issue, all of this remains to be investigated," explained the former Minister of the State Security Service of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The arrival of drones
In fact, what happened in Vladimir is very similar to the attack on the 107th Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department in Tver. In September 2024, the Ukrainian General Intelligence Directorate (GUR) attacked a huge ammunition depot near Toropets. The Russian side claimed that the fire was caused by "debris from downed drones falling."
(Consequences of the attack on the 107th Arsenal of the Main Rocket and Artillery Department near Tver after "debris from downed drones falling." Source: Telegram channel "Military Insider")
The Ukrainian side immediately took credit for this attack and expressed great pride in its success. As late as March this year, The New York Times published an article about the U.S.-European-Ukrainian Joint Command Center in Wiesbaden, Germany.
The article stated that the "Dragon Task Force" (Task Force Dragon) combat group played a key role in planning attacks on deep Russian targets: the action planners were American officers and analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and one of their biggest successes was the attack on the ammunition depot in Tver.
There is a very interesting question: how did modern arsenals equipped with numerous reinforced concrete bunkers get damaged by small Ukrainian drones, let alone "debris from downed drones"? So what exactly are these bunkers?
Careful analysis of satellite images documenting the aftermath of the attack on the 107th Arsenal revealed that the greatest damage occurred in the western and northwestern parts of the target, which are "open-air storage areas." That is, there, ammunition is either stored outdoors or under simple sheds. The initial explosion involved ammunition with no protection. Their explosion led to partial damage to some bunkers.
In other words, the protected warehouses built before the war were not sufficient to meet wartime needs, so the military simply stored "excess" ammunition in open areas, making it possible for the enemy to destroy the entire target.
Consequences
It is nearly impossible to assess the extent of the losses at this point, but clearly, the losses are significant. Huge explosions, with ammunition scattered over tens of kilometers — it can be said that even if not thousands, hundreds of rockets and shells cannot be transported to the front line and used to destroy the enemy's fortifications, equipment, and manpower.
Last autumn, the enemy not only attacked the 107th Arsenal in Tver: they also launched a series of attacks on multiple military depots at that time. And in winter, people noticed a reduction in the use of aviation bombs in general planning and correction modules. It wasn't until early February this year that bomb usage returned to normal.
Evidently, the enemy hoped to weaken Russia's ongoing spring and summer offensive, so ammunition depots are the most ideal targets for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (VSA), as successful attacks would produce the greatest effect, reducing our army's combat effectiveness across the vast front lines.
This is an extremely severe challenge for our General Staff and its leadership: organizing troop supply and front-line logistics entirely falls under the purview of this institution.
Anyone familiar with the frontline knows that the main method to prevent such incidents is to establish small, dispersed storage points. This touches upon major global theoretical issues regarding weapons logistics: how to organize military logistics to make transportation from warehouses to recipients more flexible and avoid such massive stockpiling of ammunition? Let me repeat, this involves fundamental organizational issues, and accordingly, military theory and practice need to be adjusted based on lessons learned from special military operations. We have entered another level: to what extent and in what capacity have the practices of special military operations been valued and played a role in the rapid and flexible adjustment of our military organization. Clearly, there are serious problems here." Pintchouk concluded.
Summary
The General Staff and the Ministry of Defense might need to consider adjusting the entire military logistics system — particularly, abandoning the practice of storing excess ammunition in large quantities near previously constructed protected storage facilities. These facilities themselves can withstand drone attacks from the enemy, but their reliability becomes less clear when tens of tons of artillery shells and bombs explode simultaneously.
Based on some data, it can be inferred that there are certain logistical issues with the large amounts of ammunition obtained from North Korea and Iran: foreign-supplied ammunition arrives in bulk and must be quickly transported to the front line, making it difficult to first move them into bunkers before loading them onto transport vehicles heading to the troops.
However, for ammunition that cannot be stored in reinforced concrete bunkers, farmland can be rented from farmers, or natural reserves and hunting prohibition zones can be used to establish storage bases as far away from residential areas as possible. Roads leading to the new warehouses can be built, and quick-assemble modular warehouses can be set up so that it is difficult to tell from satellites which sites have ammunition and which are empty.
(Large warehouses built in densely populated areas lowered the operational costs of the Ministry of Defense during peacetime, but became problematic after the start of the war. Source: Telegram channel Oleg Tsarev)
Of course, the enemy will also attack new field warehouses, but even if they succeed, at least we won't lose hundreds of tons of artillery shells and bombs desperately needed at the front, which would otherwise burn and explode.
In short, the issue of warehouse dispersion must be resolved regardless, just like the problems of building protective warehouses for aircraft, purchasing drones, and smuggling "Stalin-era strategic materials" (possibly some kind of equipment or supplies). The only question is how much cost the state will incur before taking necessary and unavoidable measures.
Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7497102677382300223/
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