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Analyzing the Toropets Explosion

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Last Wednesday started like any other day — I checked my email, read some press releases, scanned the Early Bird, and opened the secure messaging app Signal to see if any sources reached out.

Within minutes of opening Signal, I saw a note from an Air Force colleague who went on to work at DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency.

“Wes, check out this video.”

With no other context, the next message was a six-second video of a massive explosion shot from a mobile device.

Dear God, I thought — looks like a low-yield nuclear explosion.

“Where is this at?” I responded.

“Toropets, Tver Oblast. Russia’s largest arms depot.”

For the next two hours, we socialized the video with members from our former team, comparing the footage to the GBU-43/B explosion, also called the MOAB for ‘Mother of All Bombs’, as well as small nuclear explosions we’ve seen from Cold War tests.

The Toropets blast was so large, it was picked up by NASA satellites and earthquake monitors.