On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 9, a series of massive explosions occurred in the village of Novofedorovka in the Saki district of annexed Crimea, as a result of which one person died and seven more were injured. Being the largest explosion in Crimea since the start of the invasion, this even sent shockwaves through the pro-Russian military sources and observes. We collected and translated some of our favourite reactions, including one from Wagner group.

We’ll start with one of our most favourite sources, the Donetsk-based (allegedly) Roman Donetskiy, a livejournal.ru author very popular for his daily updates damning Ukrainians and the West at any opportunity, as he attempts to minimise the results of the attack:

What is known? The planes did not seem to be affected, no matter what’s been said. Ammunitions, yes. Fuel and lubricants most likely too. 1 dead, four wounded, but unclear if military or civilians. The runway is not damaged, the hangars are most likely too. Therefore, the damage is extremely minimal. Yet there is also a media category. Media of course describes everything as utter chaos. Including [problems] for tourists in the Crimea, and the need to strengthen air defence (which is not infinite), and in the sense of morale, Summing up, it reminds the history of  Moskva (the ship). In terms of material losses, they are not critical, but in terms of prestige, a blow with a sledgehammer. It is logical – the moral effect is easier to achieve.

By the way, here is one of the unaffected planes Roman was talking about:

Wagner group took the responsibility to calm everyone down with a highly encouraging post about the enemy and the supreme and glorious commander-in-chief:

Today is another day of “everythinglosers”! Explosions in the Crimea. Many versions from bright sun and cigarette butts and Harpoon strikes! Since I don’t believe in fairy tales much, and in general I have a real attitude towards things, I’ll leave out the most painful topic! Missile strike on the airfield. I read the comments, I marvel! Guys, if you have no one to explain to you, I’ll try to do it! If the most brutal version which is the missile strike is true, I want to tell you that absolutely nothing happened, since a SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION is underway, our country is solving its tasks set by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief! The enemy was supplied with the most modern types of weapons, they have the opportunity to get to one or another military facility! There are many such cases, in places the air defence works one hundred percent, in other new enemy systems can deceive the air defence! In addition to the conflict, there is also a technological war. Somewhere we win, somewhere the enemy! Many simply live in their little worlds and think that the conflict is somewhere far away ..

 

No guys, it is at our house, we didn’t give ultimatums before the announcement of the SMO for no reason! It’s time for many to wake up and treat things realistically until we win, such cases will be repeated and it doesn’t matter at all whether it’s rockets or a cigarette butt flared up!

“Starshe Eddy” channel with nearly 500k followers resorted to a very short note, nevertheless hoping it was not indeed a cigarette butt that caused an explosion:

Frankly I don’t know what was the reason for the explosion of the ammo cache at the Crimea aerodrome. But to me, it’s better to be a Ukrainian rocket than “human factor”.

‘Militia Summaries Z.O.V” with 290k followers says the information about the population running from the area was fake, there were no issues on the Crimean bridge, no emergency regime has been established, and likely it wasn’t an explosion at all, possibly just some kid launched a few fireworks for his birthday party:

Novofedorovka. At 21-30.

 

1. The total number of victims increased to 9.

 

Thus 1 dead civilian and 9 injured.

 

2. There was no run of the population. Moreover, by evening, people had already returned to the beaches near Novofedorovka, from where the explosions at the airfield were filmed during the day. Ukrainian propaganda in this regard clearly hoped to cause a great panic in connection with the explosions.

 

3. There are no traffic jams on the Crimean bridge – traffic is normal. Also, for several hours now, the traffic jam in the Novofedorovka area, which arose in the first couple of hours after the explosions, had dissipated.

 

4. The state of emergency has not been declared and there are no plans to announce it. At the same time, the “yellow” level of terrorist threat in Crimea was extended until August 24. Not so long ago, it was also introduced in Sevastopol after a terrorist attack near the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet.

 

5. Evacuated residents from houses adjacent to the airfield in Novofedorovka were placed in a nearby hotel. They will be able to return home after the sappers check the territory and make sure there are no explosive objects.

 

6. Regarding the causes of the explosion of ammunition, we are waiting for the conclusions of the commission. I also think that in the near future satellite images of the airfield will appear and it will be possible to assess the degree of damage to the military infrastructure.

Lovely chap Andrey Medvedev (100k followers) draws a parallel between his friend who was in jail four times and the explosions in Crimea, saying neither of the proposed explanations sound good to him:

Summary of explosions in the Crimea.

I had a classmate in elementary school. He was later in jailed four time. He said one day:

– I’m going to get a job, and I’m thinking, what do I even say? That I have four prison terms, or four classes of education? What sounds worse?

Here is the same case with Novofedorovka. Whatever the reason – the HIMARS strike, the work of saboteurs or the negligence of personnel – any version sounds so-so.

Each of the options requires tough response decisions and the adoption of a set of measures. Which in any case must be systemic.

Not momentary changes, but precisely changes in the systemic attitudes to air defence, the work against saboteurs and the underground, and, finally, to the storage and unloading of ammunition (after all, in the 21st century, not everything should always be done manually).

But globally, this is our internal affair and is quite fixable. Moreover, each options is [fixable]. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the “permoga| [victorious feeling] that reigns in Hohols’ channel, or the “zrada” [disappointed feeling] that reigns in some of our patriotic channels.

This local, although extremely unpleasant episode, will not affect the final outcome of the military operation. If all the conclusions are drawn, of course.

Finally, Roman Sapon’kov with 27k followers (occasionally quoted by larger channels) is confident the reason for the explosion was a NATO weapon. He provides his reasoning in a rather amusing manner:

More interesting things today from observing the comments. Either I was attacked by a bot farm again, or truly most of the turbopatriots support the sabotage version.

Look at what I suggest: the airfield was attacked with NATO weapons, most likely on target designation from a an unmanned aircraft. Unpleasant? Yes. But this is a war, the enemy’s weapons are good, they could get something good. We’ll recoup.

A turbopatriot comes into the comments. Nah, he says. These are saboteurs. I.e. drunk Vanya at the checkpoint let a Ukrainian saboteur into the territory. For a bottle of vodka or a bribe of 1000 rubles, to buy a bottle of vodka. Meanwhile, counterintelligence on the nearest beach was grilling barbecue and playing dominoes with visiting girls from Moscow. That’s a good version. All good as long as it’s not the gay NATO weapons.

A turbopatriot is worse than a c*ck.

Otherwise, the commentary appeared quite limited today as pro-Russian sources have likely tried to play down the impact of the attack.