Balakleya: Explosions at ammunition depots in Ukraine look inevitable. Explosions in Balakliya: who benefits? Arson in the balakley
Explosions at the ammunition depot in Balakliya continue. At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities categorically deny the possibility of deliberate concealment of mass theft, placing responsibility on the sabotage group of the LDNR. Such accusations are not as harmless as they seem.
Art warehouses in Balakleya had earned a dubious reputation as one of the most sinister military installations in Ukraine long before the war. At the turn of the zero-tenths, the base was a very specific sight. Art warehouses were overloaded by 23%, ammunition was laid out on the ground. At the same time, it was often about shells, cautiously speaking, with an excessive shelf life - in 2010, Balakleya's warehouses contained, for example, shells made in 1938, while the recycling program was invariably frustrated. Already in 2008, the amount of ammunition requiring immediate disposal exceeded 400,000 tons, with a total of 700 to 1.4 million tons to be neutralized.
The photographs of that period show obvious shortcomings in the engineering equipment of what was considered the most modern base. The guards, according to local residents, stole everything they could. So, in 2011, a local resident died while trying to cut a shell into scrap metal. “Utilization” in Ukrainian often looked like the sale of non-ferrous metals, despite the fact that gunpowder and explosives remained in warehouses due to their low cost, but the resigned head of the base became the head of the branch of the recycling company. At the same time, the base burned annually for three years in a row. Naturally, not the oldest, but the most expensive shells often became the priority target for disposal.
Illegal arms exports also thrived. IN track record Ukrainian arms barons include the smuggling of strategic cruise missiles to China and Iran, the supply of weapons to Tamil separatists, illegal shipments worth $80 million to the Congo, and accusations of selling tanks to the Taliban. As an ordinary and more ordinary example, in 2009, a Ukrainian plane with 32 tons of weapons and ammunition, including MANPADS, was detained in Bangkok.
As of June 2013, the base was still overloaded. Now the occupancy of warehouses is officially lower than the passport one - 138 thousand tons, with the maximum possible 150. However, Ukrainian officials also give higher figures - up to 175 thousand tons, and the "proposed" sabotage scheme suggests that laying shells on the ground remains commonplace. At the same time, the illegal arms trade is the only sector of the Ukrainian economy that is experiencing undeniable progress. In other words, the security of the base was a big question out of any sabotage context - especially given the increased activity on its territory. At the same time, the position of Ukraine is too similar to an attempt to attribute terrorist activities to the LDNR in any way - especially, given the persistently circulating rumors that the “contents” of the base are not limited to conventional ammunition, which will be discussed below.
How much will the military potential of Ukraine decrease as a result of the explosion of warehouses?
Theoretically, at the time of the start of the ATO, Ukraine should have had 2.16 million tons. ammunition, of which 474 thousand tons were to be disposed of. At the same time, the share of outright "illiquid assets" in Balakliya was one of the lowest - about 7 thousand tons. True, after the explosions, the share of unusable (partially dismantled) ammunition, as presented by the Ukrainian security forces, increased abruptly by almost an order of magnitude (up to about half of Balakleya's stocks).
Despite statements about 20-30% of the share of ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine stored at the base, in fact, no more than 10% is concentrated there. The most pessimistic option for the Ukrainian security forces looks like this. As shown above, the requirements of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for the state of ammunition have become more and more liberal over time, while the state itself has clearly not improved over the past 8-9 years. There is no own ammunition industry in Ukraine. As a result, the lower estimate of usable shells before the start of the ATO will be about 700 thousand tons, which increases the share of Balakleya to almost 20%, and this is the upper limit, which hardly corresponds to the real state of affairs. In general, explosions in Balakliya, unfortunately, will not have a catastrophic effect on the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The actual problem of Ukraine is not "shell hunger" as such, but rather numerous deficits in a number of key positions. So, already in 2013, the country, according to the Ministry of Defense, no longer had an excess of 152-mm shells and heavy Uragan MLRS. Subsequent fighting further reduced inventory. As a result, already in 2014, Kyiv requested supplies of ammunition from the United States, and in 2015 it already switched to their purchases in Bulgaria. If reports from the Ukrainian prosecutor's office are correct, the appeal in Balakliya could further exacerbate the already existing shortage of 152mm rounds.
Now about the possible additional threats mentioned above. One and a half dozen kilometers from Balakliya there was a rocket fuel depot in the village of Shevchenkovo, including a highly toxic and flammable oxidizer - melange (the main component is nitric acid with a concentration of at least 74%); At the same time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have at least one major release and frankly negligent liquidation of its consequences in the track record of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Some media have already "transported" Shevchenko's melange to the warehouses of Balakleya, but such information is an unconditional fake. According to official data, which there is no reason not to trust in this case, the last batch of melange from Shevchenkov was sent for processing to Russia in September 2013. In other words, there is probably no oxidizing agent in the warehouses in Balakleya. Why only "probably" will become apparent below.
As for Ukraine as a whole, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, at the end of 2013, 2 thousand tons of melange remained in warehouses out of the initial 16.7 thousand tons. At the beginning of March 2014, Kyiv reported on the export of the last batch to Russia. At the same time, as it turned out later, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry ... somewhat distorted reality. In February 2015, it turned out that there were still 323 tons of melange in a warehouse in the Odessa region. The official explanation boiled down to the fact that the "Odessa" melange, by its properties, is not a component of rocket fuel and is not subject to a disposal agreement.
The question of chemical weapons, due to extreme secrecy, is even less unambiguous. In the 80s, aviation and artillery chemical munitions were stored in the warehouses of Balakleya. However, post-Soviet Ukraine stubbornly claims that its legal reserves of poisonous substances are less than 2 kg. As usual in the case of Ukraine, “chemical” scandals periodically emerge against this background. In 1997, the Taiwanese press accused Kyiv of selling 500 tons of sarin to China. In 2010, the Ukrainian edition of Vlast. No. claimed that seven tons of sarin and one of VX were stored in a warehouse in Selishchevo, located in the Poltava region. However, we can only speak with certainty about the presence of conditionally non-lethal and “legal” chloropicrin, used to simulate chemical attacks and test gas masks. The last message about its use for these purposes in Ukraine dates back to 2015. At a temperature of 400-500 degrees chloropicrin "mutates" into lethal phosgene. There is no data on the presence of gas at the base in Balakliya, but it is absolutely not excluded. In other words, a chemical threat theoretically exists, but its reality and extent are unknown.
A much more definite threat of another kind. Balakliya was considered the most modern and safe base. In other words, the risk of a similar scenario repeating in other large ammunition depots is greater. At the same time, the placement of warehouses next to residential buildings or even directly in it is, alas, a very common feature of such facilities in relatively densely populated Ukraine. For example, stocks of "wrong" melange in the Odessa region are stored at a distance of 4 km from the railway station. What else official Kyiv "forgot" about is a very non-trivial question. Thus, the next explosions in the ammunition depots in Ukraine look almost inevitable, as well as the fact that sooner or later they will end in mass casualties. At the same time, for Kyiv, which is diligently but unsuccessfully seeking the recognition of the LDNR as terrorist organizations, they will become a pretext for appropriate accusations. At the same time, the current authorities of Ukraine can be accused of anything, but not of the inability to arrange provocations, but the temptation to reproduce the “Boeing scenario”, provoking another wave of Western pressure on the Russian Federation, is now very great.
Evgeny Pozhidaev, especially for
In the city of Balakliya, Kharkiv region on the night of March 23. A large-scale fire became the cause. Frightened local residents began to leave the city en masse, and the State Emergency Service still cannot cope with the fire. What happened in Balakliya was found out by "Apostrophe".
Evacuation is not for everyone
According to the State Emergency Service, the fire broke out around 3 am. Storage areas for rocket and artillery weapons caught fire: tank and artillery shells of 125 and 152 mm. " total area an arsenal of 368 hectares, where about 125,000 tons of ammunition are stored," said Anatoly Matios, Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine.
Immediately after the incident, rescuers deployed an operational headquarters and began to evacuate people not only from the city of Balakliya, but also from the adjacent villages - Verbovka and Yakovenkovo. On the morning of March 23, the State Emergency Service reported on the evacuation of 20 thousand people, but local residents told Apostrophe that the rescuers did not have time to help everyone.
“I have relatives there, but they haven’t been evacuated yet. They called 102, they promised to send a group, but the connection was interrupted. and the police are standing in Podsobny, but there is no result," Artur Trinchenko said.
Moreover, some residents were generally left to the mercy of fate. “At 3 o’clock in the morning, together with our children and parents, we quickly jumped out into the cellar. Windows began to crumble, doors were torn off the hinges. It is unlikely that anything whole will remain there when I return,” Yulia Trofimova, a resident of Balakleya, complains to Apostrophe. police at 6 o'clock in the morning I was culturally sent to three cheerful letters, so I had to evacuate on my own. I explained the situation to them, that I have children, and they tell us to climb into the basement. already suffocating. But they couldn’t help me with anything.”
But in the Kharkiv Regional State Administration they cheerfully reported that assistance was being provided. “Residents of the city of Balakliya and nearby villages will be temporarily settled in institutions of education and social protection in the district,” says the head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, Yulia Svetlichnaya. “At the meeting of the operational headquarters, I set tasks regarding the preparation of institutions for the reception of people. Also, the issue of allocating material assistance is now being resolved injured."
The city itself is gradually turning into a dead zone: mobile communications do not work or fail, electricity and gas supply is turned off, rail and road communications are suspended, and UkSATSE has closed the sky within a radius of 40 kilometers from the epicenter of the fire. 500 rescuers and 150 pieces of equipment were involved in the elimination of the consequences of the fire, but the State Emergency Service admits that they will be able to work only after the intensity of the explosions decreases.
Versions
There are three main versions of what exactly caused the fire on the territory of military unit A 1352 in Balakliya.
Version number 1: Official sabotage
This version was voiced by Anatoly Matios in the very first hours after the incident. It is followed by Minister of Defense Stepan Poltorak, President Petro Poroshenko and the head of the SBU Vasily Hrytsak, who opened criminal proceedings under the article "sabotage". Moreover, Hrytsak said that explosives were dropped on the territory of the unit. "Witnesses have been identified who saw how funds were dropped from an aircraft into the warehouses of the 65th arsenal, which later initiated explosions and detonation," the head of the SBU said.
But Poltorak added that a sabotage group could also have entered the warehouses. "The characteristics of the actions that took place indicate that a sabotage group was working: there was no short circuit, there was no grass on fire. According to those people who were on duty, a group was working there," the defense minister said.
Experts interviewed by "Apostrophe" agree with the official version, because the destruction of weapons depots at a time when country goes war is one of the components of any hostilities. “Certainly, this is an attempt to once again destabilize the internal situation in Ukraine,” says Zoryan Shkiryak, adviser to the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “This is a diversion against the state of Ukraine. One of the scenarios that Putin is counting on is an attempt to sow panic and anxiety among the civilian population.”
To prevent the new sabotage from repeating at other objects of the Ministry of Defense, security was strengthened at all bases and arsenals of Ukraine where ammunition is stored. But according to former Defense Minister Alexander Kuzmuk, this is not enough. "It is necessary to split into atoms everyone who is in these warehouses. It is not necessary that the saboteurs entered the warehouse at night with a duffel bag containing explosives. They could have been introduced in advance and carefully prepared," Alexander Kuzmuk told Apostrophe.
The general added that the detonation of the warehouse could be a very disturbing signal for Ukraine. "This is a very serious signal that may indicate the intensification of the enemy's actions. First of all, if the enemy is activated, sabotage is carried out to destroy warehouses, bases and command posts in the rear. You need to think about this well," Kuzmuk summed up.
Version number 2: Bathrobe
Despite the fact that the military prosecutor's office preliminarily classifies the fire as sabotage, just in case, Matios also opened a criminal case under Article 425 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine "Careless attitude to military service" or negligence.
At the same time, negligence could be of two types: either careless handling of fire by the military personnel who guarded the warehouses, for example, smoking in prohibited places, or improper security of the facility, which subsequently led to sabotage.
"The version of inaccurate smoking is unlikely. Because there were explosions and arson in several places at once," Lieutenant General Igor Romanenko, ex-deputy chief of the General Staff, told Apostrophe.
But official negligence, "thanks" to which sabotage became possible (if there was such a thing), looks quite plausible. “Well, we already had precedents when an ammunition depot in the ATO zone in Svatovo caught fire in the same way, and the official version then was that this was a sabotage carried out with the help of unmanned aerial vehicles. aircraft the enemy, - recalls a military expert, coordinator of the Information Resistance group Dmitry Tymchuk. - Sabotage in Svatovo - it was October 2015. Such a long time has passed, respectively, it was necessary to work out new protection algorithms. We are talking about hybrid warfare. The methodology for training personnel is changing, taking into account the realities that we see in the Donbass. This means that the same should apply to other aspects of the life of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, especially the safety of ammunition at a strategic facility. New security rules must be worked out. And if life does not teach anything, then such incidents will be all the time."
Version number 3: Corrupt
The version that the fire at the warehouses in Balakliya was deliberately inspired by the leadership of the military unit in order to hide the theft of ammunition was actively picked up by the Russian media. The "officials" of the quasi-republics echoed the propagandists, actively dispersing this scenario on separatist resources.
However, neither military experts nor officials are considering this version seriously. “Theft, embezzlement, another form of deliberate seizure of property from this arsenal after the strengthening of security, and this unit of 1 thousand people, is virtually impossible. There are no grounds to say that these are attempts to hide some kind of abuse or loss of property. normal logic. Whoever steals anything, but endangering the lives of more than 35,000 people is the pinnacle..." Anatoly Matios said.
Dmitry Tymchuk agrees with him. “These warehouses were mainly used for artillery and tank ammunition. Organize an underground sale of 152 mm shells? Well, to be honest, I don’t quite understand who will buy them,” the military expert summed up.
Arthur GoreFound an error - highlight and click Ctrl+Enter
Ammunition in the warehouses of Ukraine explode on the eve of the revision
According to my friends living in the regional center of Rovenki, Belgorod region, located in a straight line at a distance of up to two hundred kilometers from Balakleya, even their windows were trembling. People called each other and asked: are we already being bombed? And this, as it turned out later, was the detonation of warehouses with Tochka-U and multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), and giant explosive "mushrooms" rose into the sky above Balakleya.
The fire at the ammunition depot in Balakliya, Kharkiv region, began on the night of Thursday, March 23. In connection with the detonation of ammunition, the authorities evacuated about 36 thousand residents in a ten-kilometer zone (up to 20 thousand on the first day).
And although the next day official Kyiv announced that the fire was extinguished, ammunition exploded on the territory of the military arsenal on March 25, although less often - one explosion in five minutes. On the fourth day, and now the frequency of explosions began to be 15-20 minutes.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that the fires have been completely eliminated, but rescuers claim the opposite.
Let's say a few words about Balakleya. This is a nice suburban city, with long-standing (since the 16th-17th centuries) Russian military traditions, and in Soviet times a military town was located here for decades. From 1796 until 1891, the settlement was called Novo-Serpukhov (or Novoserpukhov) - after the stationed regiment that arrived from Serpukhov near Moscow. The Germans occupied Balakleya in December 1941 (Kharkov - in October). During the period of German occupation, the Balakleyevsky partisan detachment was created from local residents and began to operate. As the front line approached Balakliya, he, together with the Red Army, attacked the regional center and held the defense sector in the area of the water station for two days. The city is located on the left bank of the Seversky Donets River at the confluence of the Extreme Balakleyka, Srednyaya Balakleyka and Volosskaya Balakleyka rivers into the Balakleyka River and its confluence with the Seversky Donets. Pass through the city car roads T-2105, T-2110 and railway line Moscow-Donbass.
Some Ukrainian media claim that from 20 to 30% of all ammunition of the Ukrainian army was stored in Balakliya - a total of 182 thousand tons, with a passport storage capacity of 150 thousand tons, including shells for self-propelled guns "Akatsiya" with a coverage area of up to 20 km. About 7.5 thousand tons of ammunition in the warehouse were to be disposed of. The total area of the arsenal is 680 hectares, the area of the technical territory is 368 hectares, the length of the perimeter is 8.5 km. According to unverified information, chemical munitions could also be stored in Balakliya. It was also written that the warehouses near Balakliya are the largest in Ukraine, stretching underground for almost 15 kilometers, entire trains with shells can enter the underground storage facilities. Large caliber ship shells are also stored there. Biryukov, an adviser to the Minister of Defense, posted on Facebook calls not to escalate panic and notified the public that the warehouse had nine underground floors, and most of the ammunition needed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine was safely hidden under a layer of concrete. And explodes - "garbage".
Accounts with cuts of extreme amateur video footage from Balakliya are periodically deleted (apparently by moderators) and reappear in popular social networks. Indeed, the impression is terrible: either rockets are burning brightly (reportedly, of the ground-to-air class), flying chaotically and falling into residential buildings and farms, then a terrible explosion mushroom rises over the unfortunate Balakleya.
Resources "Russian Spring", "Tsargrad" and "Channel 5", referring to their sources, report that the radiation background has increased significantly in Balakliya - allowable norms already exceeded many times.
“There are no nuclear weapons in Balakliya, of course, as well as in the whole of Ukraine. Therefore, rumors about a secret storage of nuclear weapons, even at a tactical level, are nonsense. But there are shells with depleted uranium cores. And in the case of explosions such as there are now, this depleted uranium can “stain” the ground, air and increase the background, ”said one of the former officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Earlier, a message was posted on the official website of Balakleya about the presence in the region of "several facilities that create radiation risks."
We can agree with the judgment that the explosion in Balakliya shows that the renunciation of nuclear weapons is the best thing that happened in the history of modern Ukraine.
Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine I. Pavlovsky said that it would take specialists up to two months to clear the territory of the military arsenal in Balakleya, Kharkiv region, “because the mass of ammunition that the State Emergency Service is currently processing in the city, in settlements, in the adjacent territory, the bulk ammunition that exploded remained in this territory.” The general added that after demining and eliminating the consequences of the detonation of the arsenal, the military unit in Balakleya would not be liquidated, and would continue its service.
The Ministry of Defense sent a special commission led by Deputy Minister for Armaments Pavlovsky, operational groups of the SBU, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the military prosecutor's office to the scene. Prime Minister Groysman flew to the place of the emergency for some reason.
But Ukraine, as they explain, cannot cope with the catastrophe and demining itself, therefore NATO representatives began to arrive in Balakliya, which is allowed by Poroshenko’s decree, for “humanitarian demining” of the military base. Yu. Svetlichnaya, chairman of the Kharkiv State Administration, informed about this on television.
In the first days of the incident, the head of the emergency response department, P. Korotinsky, reported that rescuers could not use aircraft and equipment to extinguish the fire due to the ongoing detonation of shells. “The ammunition explodes and scatters, the range is 0.5 - 1 km,” he said. “The fire tanks from the Ministry of Defense are used there, there is a special team that has armored vehicles that can go there and carry out the necessary work.”
Later, sappers managed to clear five sectors of the city. The State Emergency Service reports that a total of 820 explosive items have been found since the start of work. 75 explosive experts and 27 units of special equipment were involved in the demining work; two fire trains are on duty at the Shebelinka railway station.
Part of the warehouses, judging by the map from space, juts out at an angle into the residential area of the district center. The city is disconnected from the gas supply, traffic is suspended at the Balakleya railway station, which, including the station building, was badly damaged by shrapnel. The Balakleya city website reported that the dairy plant was badly damaged, ammonia and chlorine were leaking, a gas station in the village of Neftchilar was blown up, residential buildings in the village of Verbovka were on fire, and the 110th microdistrict was badly damaged. The fragments were also taken to the village of Camp.
Traffic is prohibited in the areas adjacent to the explosion site road transport. The police set up 14 checkpoints to divert vehicles at the entrances to the evacuation zone. The local population was evacuated from the villages of Verbovka and Yakovenkovo and Balakleya itself. A radius of 50 km from the epicenter of the explosions has been declared an emergency zone. The airspace is closed at a distance of 40 km from the scene.
Officially, the evacuation was announced for seven days. But a lot of people settled in the cellars. There were bad messages in social networks that for the evacuation of "horseless persons" private traders took 4,000 hryvnia (UAH) from the nose (this is three to four monthly pensions, or approximately two salaries of doctors and teachers), and for providing a place in the basement - from 200 to 400 UAH To get on the evacuation bus, one had to pay 70 UAH.
The facts of monetary extortions from those in distress horrified Russian users of social networks, where one could read such responses: “We learned from the same primers. But something happened to the brothers during these 25 years. Can you imagine that in Ryazan, or Rostov, they took money from their neighbors for the opportunity to hide from explosions in the basement?
Already on March 24, five victims were reported, three of them were hospitalized. Rescuers found a woman born in 1951 under the rubble of a private house.
In social networks, they wrote that 70 wounded were brought from Balakliya to the regional center of Zmiev and the village of Komsomolsky, about which the Kiev officialdom is silent. M. Mishina wrote on Facebook: “I’m coming from Zmiev. All electric trains of this direction go to Shebelinka. This is between Zmiev and Balakleya. The wounded were delivered to Zmiev. A woman from Verbovka sits nearby. I went for documents and feed the dogs, but I didn’t get home. In front of me, fellow villagers call her that people are robbing stores.”
Many residents of Balakleya are afraid to leave their apartments for fear of property theft. To maintain law and order and prevent looting in the area, the National Guard units organized the work of 16 foot patrols (50 military personnel) and 2 mobile patrols on heavy equipment. It was also reported that the police arrested several looters who were dragging office and computer equipment from the premises.
Europe is concerned about the fact that due to an explosion at an ammunition depot near Kharkiv, Ukrtransgaz switched directions of gas transportation through a transit gas pipeline from Russia, which runs near Balakleya. Its closest branch, the northern one, coming from the Russian regional center of Valuiki, Belgorod region, is four kilometers away from the exploding warehouses, while the safe zone was at first five kilometers, and later was increased to ten.
The map of Ukraine's gas transmission system shows that from the north and south, near Balakliya, there are two transit main gas pipelines from Russia - they converge in Shebelinka, 25 kilometers west of Balakliya. On March 21, about 21 million cubic meters of gas was supplied from Russia to Europe through the northern near-Balakley branch of the gas pipeline, which is more than 10% of the total daily transit.
Another transit gas pipeline from Russia falls into the ten-kilometer security zone - passing five kilometers south of Balakleya through the Pisarevka and Sokhranovka GIS, 67 million cubic meters, or about a third (!) of the total transit volume, were supplied through it on the same day.
Today, gas from Russia to Ukraine for transit to Europe comes through four gas pipelines. Three of them pass through the Kharkiv region and one - through the Sumy region.
The situation is serious. If Gazprom agrees, then Ukrtransgaz will have to change the direction of deliveries of a sufficiently large volume of gas. As D. Marunich, co-chairman of the Energy Strategies Fund, stressed, the main question will be how long the ammunition will explode. If the shutdown of the gas pipeline lasts more than two or three days, it will create certain risks for the operation of the entire gas transportation system of Ukraine.
What are the causes of the fire that caused the detonation of ammunition?
The Chief Military Prosecutor of Ukraine A. Matios, of course, said that the explosion in Balakliya was the result of the work of a sabotage group. He noted that the interrogation of the persons of the daily duty showed that before the start of the fire and explosions, a sound was heard, similar to the drone of a flight ... of a drone. True, they say that the inhabitants of Balakleya have not seen any drones. But drunken fighters of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the ammunition depot - every day.
Interestingly, the "sabotage" version was voiced four hours after the explosion. This is a “beautiful” version, because the Balakleya warehouses are located halfway from Kharkov to Slavyansk, and it is from here that ammunition is supplied to the “ATO” zone.
The Minister of Defense of Ukraine, S. Poltorak, linked the fire in Balakliya “with a hybrid war on the part of Russia,” and did not rule out the participation of the LDNR.
Meanwhile, the official representative of the People's Militia of the LPR, A. Marochko, is convinced that the Ukrainian Armed Forces were trivially selling ammunition and, having learned about the arrival of the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine for armaments, General Pavlovsky, in order to hide the facts of large-scale shortages, the warehouse management organized a sabotage to undermine this warehouse.
As it turned out, the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine did not know or deliberately did not name the exact amount of ammunition.
For the Ukrainian authorities, an explosion of this magnitude, especially visualized by the media, is a good informational occasion for maintaining an anti-Russian tone in the population. Poroshenko even linked the explosions in warehouses near Kharkov to the murder of Mr. Voronenkov in Kyiv, calling both events terrorist attacks by Russia.
Observer A. Zubchenko writes: “Have you noticed that the topic of the arsenal and the humanitarian catastrophe has completely disappeared from the Ukrainian information space? Everyone is worried about "Putin's demonstrative terrorist attack in the center of the capital." For me, everything is so logical: a veteran of the ATO, who fought in one of the volunteer battalions, quit with a crust of the National Guard (advertising: “60,000 patriots have already joined the ranks of NG, join”), flunked a member of the Communist Party of Russia, a former deputy of the State Duma, as part of decommunization. What a sophisticated, multi-way operation of the Lubyanka special services!..”
“Unexpected” news: in April, an audit was to be carried out at the ammunition depot in Balakliya. Observers of the Free Press resource A. Dmitriev and A. Sedova noted that on March 21, according to Ukrainian News, “an American inspection team with representatives of Spain and the Czech Republic arrived in Ukraine and began work at the facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.” The purpose of the visit is to monitor Ukraine's compliance with the quantitative restrictions on weapons and military equipment falling under the CFE Treaty.
The inspection was supposed to stay in the country for three days. And further. According to the American edition of RealClearDefense, US President Donald Trump intends to arrange an audit and check how funds received from the United States during the previous American administration were used in Ukraine.
N. Savchenko, who arrived in Balakliya, made, as the media writes, "an unexpected statement" that "explosions in the warehouse are not an accident, someone was clearly trying to hide the traces of theft and crimes at a military facility."
Indeed, everything starts to explode when there are those who want to check where the loans from the IMF and the USA have gone.
It was not hidden from the public that the explosions in Balakliya were preceded by a drinking bout. A resident of Balakleya told a news channel in a comment: “I know that there was a check before the explosions. The generals came, drank at the base, and after their departure, explosions began to occur. What they did there, no one knows. One thing I can say is that the situation with the explosions shows negligence.”
It is worth recalling that in October 2015 there were powerful explosions in the “ATO” zone in warehouses in Svatovo, Luhansk region, which clearly caused disorder, but then sabotage was also officially announced.
I also remember the burning arsenals in Novobogdanovka and Lozovaya.
“It is interesting that a similar situation occurred in 2008, immediately after Saakashvili’s failed blitzkrieg in South Ossetia,” political scientist S. Uralov wrote on Facebook, recalling the fire at the warehouse in Lozovaya, back in the summer of 2008, when restoration work was carried out for about a year . - Military warehouses also burned, and also near Kharkov. Then the brother of the President of Ukraine Yushchenko, Peter, was hiding the ends, through whom the arms of the Georgian partners went. The governor of the Kharkiv region was then the current head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Avakov, and his deputy was the nephew of the same Yushchenko. Then, in 2008, the situation was hushed up - and the fate of all the participants was successful. Nobody answered for anything. Now it's even easier - you can blame the separatists or Russian saboteurs. And in general, arson is the signature style of the regime in Kyiv. I think that a lot of interesting things will burn down.”
Experts suggest that weapons from the Balakley warehouse could have been illegally supplied to Somalia, Libya, Latin American states, and explosions are a way to destroy evidence before checks, including by European partners.
Kharkov political scientist, director of the Eastern Ukrainian Center for Strategic Initiatives Roman Travin, answering questions from the SP resource, believes the version with sabotage is the least likely of all. Just because in Lately there was no such activity in Kharkov or near Kharkov. When people used to talk about the Kharkov underground, there really were some incidents - blowing up military registration and enlistment offices, attacks on vehicles - for which someone took responsibility. And the policy of the Donbass republics is not connected with subversive activities. The expert does not rule out that the fire in Balakliya was indeed an attempt to hide the supply of ammunition to third countries. In 2008, for that situation, this version seemed more likely. Now this is also possible - judging by some reports, the arms trade is carried out by Ukraine on a large scale. In contrast to 2008, it is possible to cover up traces without any problems in the "ATO" zone - ammunition and weapons are supplied there, and it is almost impossible to track their quantity.
R. Travin draws attention to two points. The first is the low level of professional training of people related to paramilitary structures. The discipline and qualifications of personnel in Ukraine are lame, therefore such incidents are possible; banal human factor and negligence. The personnel problem is generally typical for today's Ukraine. "Patriots" came to power, but not professionals. The second important point is that, in contrast to Russian Federation, where the military sphere is constantly being modernized, in Ukraine its resource has been largely exhausted. It could happen that the storage conditions were not met, because the warehouses no longer met the safety requirements. The ammunition itself could also become unusable and cause an explosion. Depreciation of fixed assets and obsolescence of ammunition could lead to an incident. It is possible that several factors coincided at once.
Residents of the Donetsk republics state with satisfaction that, in any case, the shells that flew into the air in Balakliya are ammunition that was not fired at Horlivka and Yasinovataya.
That's right. But under the current Kiev regime of disintegration and self-liquidation, civilians in the Kharkiv region have now suffered. According to Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine G. Zubko, 243 buildings were damaged to varying degrees in the Balakliya incident, including 117 apartment buildings, 87 private houses, as well as 12 social facilities and 22 infrastructure and industry facilities.
And more importantly, already this autumn people will eat what grows in nearby gardens. But there was actually a man-made disaster, it is necessary to urgently decontaminate the earth, until all the muck has gone with the rains into the groundwater.
Especially for "Century"
"We took a bottle of water and documents with us and quickly left the house," residents of the city report.
Mobile communication in the place is overloaded or absent, stationary - in some places is absent.
From Balakleya there is a huge flow of cars, eyewitnesses report, it is almost impossible to leave.
Residents of houses located near the epicenter of the explosions are waiting for the emergency in bomb shelters.
Later, the head of the Balakleysky district administration of the Kharkov region, Stepan Maselsky, said that.
"Yes, they are exploding. There is an evacuation (of residents - ed.) from the 5-kilometer zone. We are already finishing," he said. At the same time, Maselsky could not say whether there were dead or injured. "We don't understand it yet," he said.
At about 7:00 a.m., they flew to the site of the explosion of art warehouses in the Kharkiv region to provide assistance and identify the causes of the incident.
This is reported by local journalist Vyacheslav Mavrichev, referring to the preliminary findings of the military.
"Preliminarily, there is information from the military that the fire is on fire at several points at the same time," he said.
"The largest projectiles that are stored in the warehouse are 152 mm" (self-propelled guns "Acacia", radius up to 20 km), the journalist added.
Then the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported about such an attempt.
According to the General Staff, the attempt to set the fire was around 03:00. "By skillful actions of the command and personnel of the unit, sabotage was not allowed. The situation is under control, a commission headed by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine went to the scene in order to clarify the causes and circumstances. All the arsenals of the Ukrainian army were transferred to an enhanced security regime" , - said in the message of the General Staff.
"According to preliminary data (now the results of investigative actions) of the investigation and prosecutorial group of the Viysk prosecutors of the Kharkiv garrison and the investigative unit of the SBU in the Khankiv region (which are at the scene), as a result of sabotage tonight at 2:46 a.m. on several
storage sites for rocket and artillery weapons (tank and artillery shells 125 and 152 mm) near the town of Balakleya in the Kharkiv region, an explosion (a fire broke out), which caused the detonation of ammunition," he wrote in particular.
Anatoly Matios, head of the military prosecutor's office, wrote about this on his Facebook page.
08:42 Because of the sabotage in Balakleya, the State Border Service: increased density of border patrols outside the checkpoints, strengthened security measures at the checkpoints.
At present, the situation on the border sections within the Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Lugansk regions is under control. All checkpoints are operating normally.
08:58 On the situation in Balakliya to examine possible damage to residential and civilian facilities.
Fire trains of Ukrzaliznytsia were sent to the Kharkiv region in order to localize and extinguish a fire in military warehouses located near Balakleya.
09:41 Due to the ongoing detonation of ammunition at military depots in Balakliya, ". The gas pipeline closest to the depots is within a radius of 4 km.
09:52 Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak said that the fire at the ammunition depots in Balakliya continues. A third of the territory of the arsenal is on fire there. .
09:56 According to official figures, there are no dead in Balakliya, but social networks report that.
10:13 Secretary of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense Ivan Vinnik noted that at the ammunition depot in Balakliya.
10:28 Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak announced that Ukraine.
10:32 The Ministry of Defense called two versions of the explosion of ammunition depots. .
12:07 In connection with the explosions at the ammunition depot in Balakliya, the President of Ukraine.
12:22 As a result of sabotage at the ammunition depots in Balakliya.
12:37 The head of the SBU of Ukraine Vasily Gritsak said that.
12:44 in terrorist organizations.
12:48 According to eyewitnesses, in warehouses in Balakliya.
13:58 As a result of explosions near Balakleya.
"Two wounded, they were taken to the hospital. We do not know the age, the severity of the injury. We are clarifying," a police spokesman said.
14:38 About a thousand people went to Balakleya to protect public order.
14:40 The head of the press service of PJSC "Ukrtransgaz" Maxim Belyavsky said that the explosions at the ammunition depot near Balakliya, in the area where the main gas pipelines pass,.
Ukrtransgaz has significant capacities for the transit of Russian gas, so we can easily transfer the transit flow to other branches, and no one will feel it," he said.
17:08 The reason for the explosion of military warehouses in Balakliya, Kharkov region. This was announced by the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman during an emergency trip to the Kharkiv region.
08:08 As of the morning of March 24, explosions of varying intensity continue to occur on the territory of the military arsenal in Balakleya, Kharkiv region.
Due to an emergency.
10:32 In one of the houses near the burning warehouses in Balakleya According to the Ministry of Health, a woman born in 1962 received a shrapnel wound to the head as a result of a shell hit in the house.
11:05 Dnipro IT specialists processed and.
18:23 State Emergency Service and four nearby villages from explosive ordnance.
18:44 The number of victims of explosions at ammunition depots in the balakley of Kharkiv region
19:36 As a result of explosions at ammunition depots in Balakliya, Kharkiv region,
23:28 Consequences of a fire in the warehouses and its environs. This was announced by the head of the Balakleya district state administration Stepan Maselsky.
17:56 City . Such a promise was made by the head of the Department for the organization of pyrotechnic work of the State Emergency Service Oleg Bondar.
