welcome to the programme. we start with the war in ukraine, because, for the second time in a week, there have been explosions in crimea. it s not yet clear who is responsible for them. there were explosions at a russian military base there. a separate fire also broke out at a power substation, and a railway was damaged. crimea has a russian appointed local governor. he spoke after the explosion happened. translation: as of now, the information we have i is that two people were injured. one man was hit by a shrapnel fragment, the other wounded person was buried under a wall. i ve ordered 5km to be closed off. evacuation of all civilians within this 5km zone is under way. earlier this week, there was this other explosion this was on tuesday at an airfield. it s reported that destroyed at least seven russian aircraft. let s remind ourselves why crimea is important. russia illegally invaded it in 2014 and has occupied it since. since russia s invasion of ukraine this year, its
since russia s invasion of ukraine this year, its forces now also control all the areas you see in red. and the fact these strikes are hitting military bases in crimea is significant. defence editor at the economist shashankjoshi explains why. it forces russia to push its ammunition depots and command posts further away from the front lines. and that has both a sort of demoralising value, but it actually also has a logistical value because it makes life more difficult for russia to get all that ammunition, to get those weapons from those that oppose all the way to the front lines. russian officials initially said it happened because of a fire. now they ve said this. translation: we are now seeing an official statement from the ministry of defence that today s emergency was caused by sabotage. so, russia blames sabotage. let s look at what ukraine is saying. it hasn t said it s responsible for the attack.