The UK Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that a mixture of weapons treatment and bad storage practices probably led to the explosions that rocked Russia’s 51st arsenal in late April.
In an intelligence update, the ministry estimated that the explosions have probably resulted in the largest loss of the Kremlin in its own ammunition due to the actions of its forces since the war began widely in Ukraine.
The ministry wrote: “It is very likely that bad procedures in dealing with weapons will lead to storing neglected ammunition to this loss.”
He added: “This is in line with a long -term trend of Russian inefficiency that has been established regularly with regard to safe and sound dealing with its own ammunition.”
The ammunition warehouse, about 50 miles northeast of Moscow and in the Vladimir region, suffered from multiple explosions after it caught fire on April 22.
Although it was not called the facility, the Kremlin said on the same day that a fire in a warehouse in the Vladimir area caused the bombing of ammunition. The Russian Ministry of Defense statement blamed “violating safety requirements when working with explosive materials.”
The previously obtained satellite images by Business Insider showed that the Russian arsenal was severely damaged, as large parts of the facility were affected.
On April 24, the image shows widespread damage.
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The UK Ministry of Defense said that satellite images showed that more than a square kilometer of the warehouse had been damaged by the bombings, which suggested “huge losses in a major strategic warehouse that provides Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
It seems that trades circulating on the social media of the explosion showing secondary explosions in the civilian regions around the ammunition depot, which is one of the largest Russia.
The UK Ministry of Defense referred to Ukrainian figures that said that the Grau 51 warehouse carries about 105,000 tons of ammunition, including ballistic missiles launched by air and air defense.
Andrei Kovalinko, head of the Kiev Center for misleading information, said at the time of the explosions that the warehouse also stored artillery shells.
The comparative photos provided by the UK Ministry of Defense provided a closer look at the damage to the parts of the Grau 51 warehouse.
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The same warehouse may have suffered from explosive accidents before. Russian government media reported in June 2022 that four people were killed by the “automatic bombing” of a shell while ammunition was loaded and unloaded in a warehouse in the Vladimir area.
