Ichnia ammunitions depot fire under control, authorities say

The fire at the Ichnia ammunitions depot is under
control with few explosions occurring as of the morning of Oct. 11, announced
the Emergency Situations State Service. On the prior evening, the Defense
Ministry had announced that the fire was fully liquidated. Yet it confirmed
this morning that explosions instead intensified throughout the night until
5:00 a.m. “Aerial surveillance is working this morning on the arsenal’s
territory, which is discovering smoldering pockets,” the defense ministry press
service said, adding that emergency services planes were dropping water on
them. Numerous fire vehicles are also working to extinguish the remaining
fires, it said.

Negligence is not being considered as the cause of the
Ichnia depot fire after interviews of military personnel conducted by
prosecution investigators, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told reporters on
Oct. 10. “As of yesterday, the negligence version of events was eliminated
after the evidence offered by military officers,” he said. “There are grounds
to believe sabotage occurred. That is obvious. We are in a state of war and
destroying military bases is one of the enemy’s goals.”

At the weekly Cabinet of Ministers meeting on Oct. 10,
Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak identified several reasons why fires have
erupted so frequently at Ukrainian military arsenals, including inadequate
perimeter security and the storage of armaments on ground, instead of concrete.
“If ammunition is stored on soil, it’s impossible to protect them from
saboteurs or even negligence.” Poltorask stressed that 15 concrete ammunitions
storage depots are planned to be built by the year end at the largest arsenals.
The Ichnia depot was the third major Ukrainian military arsenal to erupt in
fire in the last two years, with investigators unable to establish official
causes of the prior two fires.

Zenon Zawada: We expect the fate of the Ichnia investigations will repeat the fate
of the investigations of the other major two arsenal fires (Kalynivka and
Balaklyia), which is that no cause will be established nor persons brought to
criminal responsibility. Without effective investigations and punishments
rendered, these incidents are prone to repeat themselves.