Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in western Russia, wrote on Telegram on Tuesday that there had been “spontaneous combustion” of ammunition in the area of a village called Timonovo, according to an English translation. On August 18, Gladkov also announced on Telegram that an ammunition depot near Timonovo had caught fire. Videos on social media circulated on August 18 that some users, including Ukrainian government official Anton Gerashchenko, said showed fire and explosions at a Russian ammunition depot in Belgorod, but Newsweek was unable to independently verify whether the videos showed the same fire confirmed by Gladkoff. In Belgorod, whose administrative center is a city of the same name, several mysterious explosions and fires have been reported in the area since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Russia blamed Ukraine for one of those cases – when a series of explosions hit dozens of residential buildings in the city of Belgorod in early July – but Ukraine denied involvement. A general view shows the Russian city of Belgorod, about 700 kilometers south of Moscow, on April 11, 2019. In the Belgorod region, a Russian village located about nine miles from the Ukrainian border has seen two separate cases of ammunition exploding or catching fire nearby in a week, according to local authorities. Vasily Maximov/AFP via Getty Images On Tuesday, Gladkov ruled out the cause of the munitions burning as a possible Ukrainian attack, saying instead that the explosions were caused by hot weather. “There were no casualties, but to ensure the safety of residents, the head of the Valuysky region organized the transportation and accommodation of residents in the Krasnaya Polyana sanatorium,” he wrote in the Telegram post. “Some of the villagers left on their own to live with relatives in other settlements. I am keeping the situation under personal control, operational services are working on the ground.” When Gladkov confirmed the initial fire near Timonovo last week, he said there were no casualties and authorities were investigating the cause of the fire. He also wrote in the post that residents of the villages of Timonovo and Soloti, which Reuters reported are about nine miles from Ukraine, were evacuated to a “safe distance.” It was not immediately clear whether the same ammunition site near Timonovo was the focus of both incidents. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for further information and comment. On August 20, two days after the warehouse fire, Gladkov wrote in Telegram that experts were inspecting the territory of Timonovo and three other nearby villages to make sure they were safe for residents. “After returning, you should be careful and careful, do not leave children unattended, and be careful of all suspicious objects!” He wrote. Gladkov announced two days later that there would be a “yellow” level terrorist threat until September 7 in the Belgorod region. The ban on bursting firecrackers and fireworks has also been extended till that date, he said.
