What did Ukraine's drone strike on Toropets show on 18 September 2024?
A retrospective on a depot explosion in Tver Oblast and Kyiv's reaction to a US shooting case that drew in Ukraine's name.
What did the night of 17–18 September 2024 look like from inside Ukraine's war effort? On 18 September 2024, a Ukrainian drone attack hit a Russian weapons depot in Toropets, Tver Oblast. The explosion was large enough to be detected as an earthquake by monitoring stations. Local residents were told to evacuate, and schools in the region were closed.
The target was the 107th Arsenal of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate, an ammunition depot of the Russian Armed Forces. The attack set off a series of explosions and fires and shattered windows across nearby towns. The main blast left a crater 82 metres wide and produced a seismic wave of magnitude 2.5 to 2.8 at 3:56 am local time on 18 September.
A separate pressure point in Washington
The same days brought a different kind of problem for Kyiv. On 15 September 2024, Donald Trump, then a former US president and the Republican nominee, survived an assassination attempt while golfing at his club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The suspect was Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old roofer described as a Russo-Ukrainian war activist.
On 16 September 2024, Ukrainian officials publicly distanced themselves from the suspect. Reports said he had protested in support of the Azov Brigade and had regularly called for international support and troops for Ukraine. The officials warned that Russia would use the situation for anti-Ukraine propaganda.
Two fronts, one day
Taken together, the two stories show how Ukraine's position was shaped on 18 September 2024 both by operations inside Russia and by messaging abroad. The first was a military strike with evacuations and school closures in Tver Oblast. The second was a public effort by Ukrainian officials to separate their country from an act of violence in the United States.
