RIGA, Latvia -- Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of escalating their war by carrying out a helicopter attack against a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had been informed about the incident. Peskov said it was "certainly" an escalation, adding, "This is not something that can be perceived as creating conditions comfortable for the continuation of negotiations."
Ukrainian officials generally would not confirm or deny the attack, suggesting it could be a Russian error or even linked to Russian helicopter pilots who had refused to fly into Ukraine. The officials suggested that Moscow should sort out what was happening on its own territory.
But many military and intelligence analysts said it had been a Ukrainian attack carried out by two Mi-24 helicopters that swept in low; fired rockets at the fuel depot, causing a large explosion; and then were spotted departing, still flying at a very low altitude.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's national security council, pushed back against those reports, saying on Ukrainian television that "for some reason they say that we did it, but in fact this does not correspond with reality."
If the attack is confirmed, then it marks a risky shift by Ukraine, with its forces shifting from a largely defensive posture to a direct airstrike on Russia at a time when the Russian military appears weakened.
Videos of the attack taken from several angles swiftly surfaced on Russian social media, and local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov immediately blamed Ukraine for the attack.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the attack happened at about 5 a.m. He said the fuel depot, not far from the border with Ukraine, was a civilian fuel facility not used for military vehicles involved in the war.
"Ukrainian helicopters delivered a missile strike upon a civilian oil storage terminal located on the outskirts of Belgorod," he said at a briefing. "A number of tanks were damaged and caught fire after being hit by missiles.
"I'd like to stress that this facility is used to supply fuel only to civilian transport vehicles. The oil terminal has no relation to the Russian armed forces," he said.
The incident occurred as Russian forces have been pulling back from several areas of Ukraine.
The Russian military campaign was expected to take days but has dragged on with huge losses of troops and military equipment. Russian military officials have frequently asserted that Ukraine's air force is almost destroyed.
While acknowledging an attack, Peskov asserted that Russia's control over its own airspace was not in doubt.
"Air superiority in the operation is an absolute fact, it really is," he said. "As for what happened, it is up to our law enforcement agencies, not us, to make assessments."
The attack, which caused no casualties, came days after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that Ukraine's air force and air-defense network had been "practically destroyed," adding that "air superiority has been achieved." He claimed that Russia had accomplished its main goals, including degrading Ukraine's military.
Rob Lee of the King's College War Studies Department in London said the attack was most likely carried out by Ukraine.
"Shoigu said the war is going well. And days later, they do this helicopter attack in Russia proper, this brazen, bold attack, and it's embarrassing," Lee said.
"It helps break the propaganda being pushed in Russia. Obviously, the Russian news is covering the war in a very positive way, and they're not exposing all the problems that are happening. They keep saying it's all going to plan.
"But here's very clear and undeniable proof that the war is not going to plan, that the Ukrainian military is not destroyed, and the Ukrainian air force can still do operations in Russia more than a month into the war."
State television anchor Vladimir Solovyov expressed anger about the attack.
"Who is responsible for the air defense in the Belgorod direction?" he demanded on his channel on the Telegram messaging app. "Are the locations of the strike helicopters destroyed? When will the security zone for the Belgorod region be established?"
When Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was asked about the allegations of Ukrainian involvement, he said he could not confirm or deny the reports because he did not have all the relevant military information.
Ukraine military spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said his country did not bear responsibility for catastrophes and mistakes in Russia. He declined to confirm or deny Ukrainian involvement but said it was not the first time Russia had made such accusations.
Ukraine's operation was defensive, "to resist Russia's military aggression in the territory of Ukraine," Motuzyanyk added.
UKRAINE'S DEFENSE
After Russia began the invasion Feb. 24, Ukrainian forces initially mounted a defense focused on Kyiv and other major cities. In recent days, they have been retaking settlements near the capital and along the front lines.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych insisted that Ukraine was focused on defending itself.
"Maybe someone smoked in the wrong place" and caused the fire, he said. "Maybe it was an act by some soldiers who don't want to fight in Ukraine. Everything that happens on Russian territory is the responsibility of the Russian leadership. All questions to them."
Lee said this was likely not Ukraine's first attack on Russian soil, with reports that Kyiv has likely fired Tochka-U missiles into Russian territory on several occasions during the war. He dismissed speculation that the helicopter attack may have been a Russian false-flag operation, arguing that Moscow no longer needs to create a pretext for war.
On Tuesday, a series of explosions also occurred at a Belgorod ammunition storage facility.
Russian media initially said the explosions appeared to be caused by firing from the Ukrainian side, but officials later blamed the blasts on a fire on the premises. Lee said the blasts may have been caused by a missile from Ukraine.
The latest incident risks undermining progress in talks between the two sides aimed at reaching a peace deal, now at a delicate stage after Ukraine offered concessions to Russia on Tuesday in return for a military withdrawal.
Russian negotiators announced Tuesday that Moscow's forces would deescalate their combat operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv to "build trust," focusing their fight on eastern Ukraine. The announcement caused anger among prominent hard-line state television presenters and pundits and on social media.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he did not trust Russia's announcement of a deescalation, telling Ukrainians in one of his regular addresses Thursday: "We don't believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase." U.S. officials have also been skeptical of Moscow's announcement, seeing it as a sign that Russia is probably taking time to regroup and reorganize its attack.
CITIES' DANGER
Zelenskyy warned his people late Friday that retreating Russian forces were creating "a complete disaster" outside the capital as they leave mines across "the whole territory," even around homes and corpses.
He issued the warning as the humanitarian crisis in the encircled city of Mariupol deepened, with Russian forces blocking evacuation operations for the second day in a row.
"They are mining the whole territory. They are mining homes, mining equipment, even the bodies of people who were killed," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. "There are a lot of trip wires, a lot of other dangers."
He urged residents to wait to resume their normal lives until they are assured that the mines have been cleared and the danger of shelling has passed.
Zelenskyy warned of difficult battles ahead as the Russians redeploy troops. "We are preparing for an even more active defense," he said.
He did not say anything about the latest round of talks, which took place Friday by video. At a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral -- Moscow's chief demand -- in return for security guarantees from several other countries.
The invasion has left thousands of people dead and driven more than 4 million refugees from Ukraine.
Mariupol's fate could determine the course of the negotiations to end the war, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta.
"Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance," Fesenko said, "and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table." The fall of Mariupol, he said, "will open the way to a peace agreement."
On Friday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said it was unable to carry out an operation to get civilians out of Mariupol by bus. It said a team had been on its way but had to turn back.
City authorities said the Russians were blocking access to Mariupol.
"We do not see a real desire on the part of the Russians and their satellites to provide an opportunity for Mariupol residents to evacuate to territory controlled by Ukraine," Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, wrote on Telegram.
He said Russian forces "are categorically not allowing any humanitarian cargo, even in small amounts, into the city."
About 100,000 people are believed to be left in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and weeks of Russian bombardment and street fighting have caused severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
"We are running out of adjectives to describe the horrors that residents in Mariupol have suffered," Red Cross spokesperson Ewan Watson said.
Zelenskyy said more than 3,000 people were able to leave Mariupol on Friday. He said he discussed the humanitarian disaster with French President Emmanuel Macron by telephone and with the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, during her visit to Kyiv.
"Europe doesn't have the right to be silent about what is happening in our Mariupol," Zelenskyy said. "The whole world should respond to this humanitarian catastrophe."
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday from the Crimean Peninsula at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said.
The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles were intended for critical infrastructure but did not hit their targets because of Ukraine's air-defense forces. It was unclear where they hit.
Marchenko said there were casualties, but he did not elaborate.
Odesa is Ukraine's largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
On the outskirts of Kyiv, where Russian troops have withdrawn, damaged cars lined the streets of Irpin, a suburban area popular with young families that's now in ruins. Emergency workers carried elderly people on stretchers over a wrecked bridge to safety.
Three wooden crosses next to a residential building that was damaged by shelling marked the graves of a mother and son and an unknown man. A resident who gave her name only as Lila said she helped hurriedly bury them March 5, just before Russian troops moved in.
"They were hit with artillery, and they were burned alive," she said.
An Irpin resident who gave his name only as Andriy said the Russians packed up their equipment and left on Tuesday. The next day, they shelled the town for close to an hour before Ukrainian soldiers retook it.
"I don't think this is over," Andriy said. "They will be back."
Information for this article was contributed by Robyn Dixon, Miriam Berger and David L. Stern of The The Washington Post and by Nebi Qena, Yuras Karmanau, Andrea Rosa and staff members of The Associated Press.
A boy looks at a destroyed Russian tank Friday after recent battles in Bucha, Ukraine. (AP/Oleksandr Ratushniak)Gallery: Images from Ukraine, month 2
