Ukrainian officials said the explosion near the monument to the "Three Sisters" on the border with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday was caused by Russian troops deliberately blowing up the Chernihiv-Bryansk road.
A video showing a massive explosion on the road leading to the monument has been circulating on social media.
Andriy Demchenko, spokesman for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, told CNN:
"Yesterday in the Chernihiv region, border guard detachments of the State Border Guard Service recorded an explosion at noon in the direction of the junction of the three countries."
"Later it turned out that the Russian occupiers had blown up the Chernihiv-Bryansk highway. As we can see, with the 'Kyiv in three days' they started blowing up roads, probably fearing that Ukraine will launch an offensive on the regional center [Bryansk]," the spokesman said.
"But Ukraine is not an aggressor. Our state is exclusively defensive and we do not need Bryansk. But we need the fall of the decision-making center where it was decided to wage war against Ukraine, so let them blow it up," he added.
Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram: "Russians are blowing up the roads on the border, which they used to 'take Kyiv in three days'."
Russian military bloggers posted a video of the explosion online on Tuesday, saying that the explosion occurred at the junction of the borders of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, "in a tank-dangerous direction."
The Three Sisters monument, unveiled on May 3, 1975, was built as a symbol of the so-called friendship of the three countries, which at the time were under Russian occupation as part of the Soviet Union.