A rocket exploded in the center of Taganrog, Rostov region, said the governor of the region, Vasily Golubev. According to the Ministry of Health, 14 people were injured. The Russian Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of a missile attack on the city.
On Friday afternoon, videos from the explosion site appeared on local Telegram channels. Its reason was not clear, but soon the governor of the Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, announced that “a rocket, presumably, exploded.” There were no deaths in the explosion, but there were wounded.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that fragments of a Ukrainian missile intercepted in the air fell in Taganrog. According to the agency, “an anti-aircraft missile of the S-200 air defense system converted into a strike version” was launched from the territory of Ukraine.
Later, the Russian Defense Ministry reported a second downed missile over the Rostov region. According to the agency, another missile of the S-200 air defense system was intercepted in the sky over the city of Azov. The fragments of this rocket fell in a “deserted area”.
The Ukrainian authorities did not take responsibility for what happened, and Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, called the explosion in Taganrog the result of internal Russian processes.
“Everything that is happening in Russia, including Taganrog, is an unconditional consequence of a large-scale war started by Russia, uncontrolled processes of the collapse of government systems at various levels and growing internal protests,” he tweeted.
On Friday evening, the press secretary of the President of Russia said that Vladimir Putin was informed about the incident in Taganrog.
According to the Rostov governor, the epicenter of the explosion fell on the territory of the Taganrog Art Museum – the walls of the building and nearby buildings were destroyed. Windows were shattered in nearby houses.
The Astra Telegram channel noted that the explosion occurred two kilometers from the Taganrog port. Taganrog is a city on the Sea of Azov, 50 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
At the same time, the Important Stories publication (included in the register of “foreign agents” and undesirable organizations in Russia) notes that the missile fell 10 km from the Taganrog air base. This is the headquarters of the scientific and technical complex, which produces the A-50 airborne early warning aircraft. Also at the airfield there are Tu-95 bombers and there are sites for launching UAVs, the newspaper notes.
Today’s arrival of a rocket is not the first in Taganrog during the war, but so far the most destructive. In July 2022, a drone fell on a private residential building in Taganrog, starting a fire.
Also in social networks there were reports that in September 2022 a rocket was shot down in the sky over Taganrog, because of which local residents heard a powerful explosion.
Source : BBC
