Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, has said that a turning point has already begun in the war against Russia, and Russians have begun to realise that it is affecting them too, rather than happening "somewhere in the world".
Quoted by Liga.net as saying on the national telethon, he noted there had been no explosions in occupied Crimea before August.
He said the Russians were beginning to realise that "their army is not that strong, their air defence systems are not that good, and the Russian army is not really capable of defending even temporarily occupied territories".
"It's not at all the second army in the world, or even the fourth. And the payback will come. The understanding that there will be a reckoning comes to people when they begin to see and feel personally that the war is not somewhere out there in some part of the world, but right around them. So the turning point has already begun," Budanov said.
A spontaneous combustion of munitions happened in Russia's Belgorod Region yesterday. The evacuation of residents in one of the settlements was announced. The regional authorities attributed the fire to extreme heat and the "lens effect". In April, an oil depot in Belgorod, 40 km from the Ukrainian border, was on fire, and an ammunition depot in the region also caught fire.
In recent days, a series of explosions occurred in Crimea and Sevastopol.