Planet Labs has published the first images showing the consequences of explosions at the Saky military airbase, located near the village of Novofedorivka. Photos show burnt-out Russian planes and other destroyed machinery of the occupiers.
Photos show burnt-out Russian planes and other destroyed machinery of the occupiers. Powerful explosions at the Saky airport occurred on August 9. Already, according to the records of an eyewitness who showed destroyed houses and burned cars in a car park about 800 meters from the epicenter, it was clear that they had to cause massive damage to the Russian military. An aviation regiment was based at the aerodrome — ten Su-30SM fighters, twelve Su-24 bombers and one Il-76 transport aircraft were counted on the photographs taken shortly before the explosions.
Planet’s images demonstrate the scale of the destruction. On them you can see craters with a diameter of 20-25 meters, remaining on the site of exploded ammunition depots, and almost completely destroyed buildings.
As for the planes, according to the most conservative estimates, at least three Su-30s and six Su-24s were destroyed. Apparently also destroyed (or very seriously damaged) at least two more Su-24s and three Su-30s.
After the explosions, the Russian Defense Ministry said that their cause was “the detonation of several aviation munitions”. In turn, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine noted that they could not determine the cause of the fire on the territory of the airport, but recalled the rules of fire safety and the prohibition of smoking in unidentified places.
Interestingly, satellite images taken on August 10 show about five warplanes and one private jet on taxiways. This suggests that the Russian military decided to evacuate the surviving airplanes — apparently, in case of repeated smoking in unidentified places.
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