Putin holds council meeting on domestic security following 3 airbase ‘explosions’

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday called a meeting with his security council to discuss the country’s domestic defenses after three airbases saw “explosions” this week. 

The Kremlin did not release details of the meeting but said that Russian officials looked to shore up the nation’s “internal security.”

The meeting appeared to take place just hours after a third airbase was struck in the Russian city of Kursk north of the Ukrainian border and one day after explosions were reported at two separate airbases hundreds of miles inside Russian territory.

The regional governor of Kursk said an oil storage tank had been set ablaze, but no casualties have yet been reported, according to Reuters.

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The latest explosion followed alleged drone strikes Monday on Russia’s Engels Airbase in the southeast Saratov region and at the Dyagilyaevo airfield, located near the city of Ryazan, roughly 125 miles outside of Moscow.

Russia’s defense ministry has laid the blame on Ukraine, according to Russian news outlets, though Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.

 At least two Tu-95 BEAR heavy bombers were damaged in the explosions and three people were reportedly killed. 

The U.K. defense ministry on Tuesday said the cause of the explosions had still not been confirmed but noted that if Russia determines the strikes were deliberate, then Moscow will likely consider them the “most strategically significant failures of force protection” since it invaded Ukraine nine months ago. 

“The Russian chain of command will probably seek to identify and impose severe sanctions on Russian officers deemed responsible for allowing the incident,” Britain’s defense ministry assessed. 

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Russia saw two similar explosions earlier this year when its naval headquarters for the Black Sea fleet was hit in Crimea just weeks after the Novofedorivka airbase – also in Crimea – saw at least nine warplanes destroyed in a separate explosion. 

It is unclear if Kyiv struck either base in August, though Russia attempted to downplay both incidents claiming one was the result of a drone that had been struck down while the other occurred after ammunition accidentally detonated. 

One anonymous Western official at the time told Reuters that Ukraine was seeing “kinetic effects” behind Russian lines, which was having “a significant psychological effect on the Russian leadership.”

The U.K. defense ministry pointed out that the Monday “explosions” were more significant given their locations hundreds of miles across Russian borders. 

“The sites are much deeper inside Russia than previous similar explosions: Engels is over 600km [370 miles] from Ukrainian-controlled territory,” the intelligence update said. “Engels is the main operating base of Russia’s Long Range Aviation (LRA) within western Russia and is home to more than 30 heavy bombers.”

The defense ministry said Russia will likely respond by dispersing the bombers – which Moscow relies on for its nuclear deterrence – to various airfields across the country.