At least five people died in an air attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, according to the governor of the region.
Eighteen people were hurt in the attack near the Ukrainian border.
Videos on social media showed many ambulances outside a shopping center with broken windows.
Russian officials said their defense systems shot down 14 missiles from Ukraine in the Belgorod region.
Russian Zvezda TV, which is connected to the military, reported that one missile hit a shopping center and one landed on the city’s sports stadium.
Belgorod is about 30 kilometers (19 miles) away from the Ukraine border.
Ukrainian forces have been attacking it since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.
In December, a drone and rocket attack killed 25 people and hurt 100 others in Belgorod, marking the deadliest attack in the city.
Yesterday, Russia shot 26 missiles at Ukraine. It killed a 66-year-old woman in Chuguyiv, near Kharkiv in the east, and hurt many other people.
At the same time, fighting continues in the eastern town of Avdiivka in Ukraine.
A few Ukrainian soldiers told the media that the town might be taken over very soon. They said they don’t have enough weapons and ammunition.
NATO boss Jen Stoltenberg said Thursday that if the US doesn’t keep helping Ukraine’s military, it will hurt them in fighting.
Avdiivka is an important place because it is a way to get to the city of Donetsk, which is controlled by Russia. It has been active on the front line since 2014 when the fighting in eastern Ukraine began.
Tag: Belgorod
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Ukraine war: Attack on Russia’s Belgorod commercial complex close to border
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Russians relocate residents of Ukrainian-affected city
Russia is moving people out of Belgorod because Ukraine attacked the city and it’s not safe for them to stay there.
On Friday, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that a few families had moved out of the city, which is near the border of Ukraine.
Over the weekend, 25 people died and over 100 were hurt in one of the worst attacks in Russia since it entered Ukraine in February 2022.
The attack came after Russia launched a lot of airstrikes on Ukraine, killing many people and hurting over 160.
Kyiv said that Russia‘s recent missile attacks were the largest so far in the war.
On Friday, Mr. Gladkov wrote on Telegram that he saw people asking for help on social media because they were scared and needed to get to a safe place.
“Sure, we will. We have already helped many families move,” he said.
The governor said people would be brought to the towns of Stary Oskol and Gubkin and could stay there for as long as they need.
However, he said that not everyone could be helped there, so he would ask friends from other places to come and help.
The governor sent out a message telling people that a missile could come and to go home or find a safe place to stay.
Russia keeps saying that Ukraine is responsible for the drone attacks that have been happening recently.
Kyiv doesn’t often admit to doing attacks in other countries, but they have done it before.
The fighting across borders has happened because the US is saying Russia is making the situation worse in Ukraine. They say Russia is using missiles and launchers from North Korea, which is a big problem.
Moscow said they didn’t work together on that.
The US government recently approved a $250 million military aid package for Ukraine.
Negotiations for more money in Congress have stopped because Republicans don’t agree. They want stronger security at the US-Mexico border as part of any military aid deal.
Ukraine says it needs more help from the West or it could lose the war and have money problems. -
Russians in border city close to Ukraine find no place to stay
The people in Belgorod have been attacked by Ukraine in the past, but the attack on Saturday was the worst one since the war started.
Twenty-five people died and over 100 others were injured in a large Russian city near Ukraine.
The Ukrainian missile attacks happened one day after Russia’s biggest air attack in the war, which killed more than 40 people.
This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia attacked Ukraine with 500 missiles and drones in just five days.
Ukraine will be punished for targeting Belgorod, said President Vladimir Putin. The people who live in the city say that the government is not doing enough to keep them safe.
Local people told Russian media that they heard the air raid alerts only 30 minutes into Saturday’s attack.
They were told to hide, but some found that the basement shelters in their apartment buildings were locked.
One person told the BBC that some basements have a paper with a phone number on the door for the person who has the key. “The worst thing that could happen is if the management company has the key, and since it’s the winter holidays, no one is working. ”
What’s the reason for Russia bombing Ukraine more often.
Sheltering from attack is a bigger problem in Ukraine. Attacks happen a lot and in many places. In winter, it’s dangerous for Ukrainians because Russian attacks happen mostly at night. They have to decide whether to sleep in metro stations or stay at home.
But in Belgorod, a city in Russia with 340,000 people that’s only 30 minutes from the border, one woman named Angela used social media to say that the emergencies ministry’s regional department didn’t know about shelters.
“How is this possible. ” she asked the local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
What if a person came to the city to help family. How can they find out about the management company. There has been a special military operation for two years,” she said, using the Kremlin’s term for the war in Ukraine.
Sergei said he has the same problem in his town, Stary Oskol, which is about 180km (110 miles) from the Ukrainian border. He said that the local government is not doing anything about it and just gives a standard response. If there’s shelling, we don’t know where to go to be safe.
According to another person in Belgorod, the shelters have had problems since the war began.
“I am very mad. People have been talking about it, but the shelter problem has only become known now that there have been casualties,” she told the BBC without giving her name.
A year and a half ago, when a tall apartment building was hit, people tried to find basements to hide in, but all the basements were closed. We don’t have bomb shelters that people know about or can use.
Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered a big attack in February 2022, officials in Belgorod said they couldn’t tell people where the official bomb shelters were because the Ukrainian military might attack them.
Instead, they shared a video that tells you what to do during an air raid. It says to stay away from windows and go to the ground floor or basement.
When Belgorod was attacked again on January 2nd, many people there left their doors open so others could come inside and be safe from the fighting.
Alexander said, “We are just assisting one another. ”
The local leader has not answered publicly to people’s complaints. The BBC has asked his office for comments, but they have not responded yet.
Before the war, Belgorod had a strong connection with the much larger Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which is on the other side of the border.
Russian forces have bombed the middle of Kharkiv from Belgorod region many times. This area near the border has been impacted by the war more than any other place in Russia.
Yulia says that the bombing will definitely keep happening. “But what is going to be different. “ -
Ukraine war: Missiles fired into Crimea and Russian city of Belgorod
Russian officials said they stopped a Ukrainian attack on a border city as the air war between the two countries gets worse.
The authorities said that twelve missiles were destroyed before they reached Belgorod. Twenty-five people were killed in Belgorod on Saturday. Ukraine hasn’t said anything.
The attacks happened after Russia did its biggest bombing from the air.
Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that Russia has fired around 300 missiles and used 200 drones in the last five days.
Russia started bombing Ukraine again last week. Ukrainian soldiers fought back against the attack on Belgorod on Saturday, and more than 100 people got hurt.
In his speech at night, he said Russia shot “almost 100 different types of missiles” on Tuesday. He said that the enemy planned to cause a lot of damage with these weapons.
MrZelensky said that 10 very fast ballistic missiles were destroyed on Tuesday.
Ukrainian leaders said on Wednesday that the attacks on Tuesday, including in the cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv, had hurt or killed over 130 people in the country.
On Tuesday, one person died and five were hurt in Belgorod, according to the region’s governor. However, the 12 missiles that were launched at the area last night were stopped by Russia’s air defense system, according to the defense ministry.
Explosions happened in Sevastopol, the biggest city in Russia-controlled Crimea. A missile was also shot down over the port. The governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said this on Telegram. No one was hurt and nothing was broken. -
Three individuals killed in Belgorod few hours after drones struck Moscow
Russian officials say that three people were killed in an attack in the Belgorod region of Russia. This happened shortly after another attack with a drone in central Moscow.
Belgorod’s leader, Vyacheslav Gladkov, accused Kyiv of being responsible for the attack near the Ukrainian border in our region.
“He said that Ukrainian soldiers used a drone to throw a bomb when there were people walking on the street. ”
Kyiv has not admitted doing either of the incidents, but it usually doesn’t say anything about attacks happening inside Russia.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that a second drone was destroyed in the region, a few hours after the first drone attack killed three people in Belgorod.
Drones were used to attack both Belgorod and a construction site in Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
The defense ministry said that air defenses successfully destroyed two drones in the Mozhaisk and Khimki districts of the Moscow region. No one got hurt or killed.
After the happenings in Russia’s main city, all trips to and from Moscow’s airports were stopped early Wednesday, but they later went back to normal.
In the past few days, the capital has been hit by multiple drone attacks, leading to the repeated suspension of flights for safety reasons.
According to the AFP news agency, there were more attacks in the sky over Moscow for the sixth night in a row.
A drone that crashed into a building being built at the Moscow city complex was stopped by electronic warfare devices, the defense ministry announced. It crashed into the building because it couldn’t control itself.
Windows were broken in two tall buildings across from the construction area, and the emergency services were checking the place, according to Mr.
The US State Department said they were not supporting drone attacks in Russia after hearing about the crashed drones.
American officials said that it was the decision of Ukraine on how to protect itself, and Russia had the power to stop the war whenever it wanted by removing its troops from Ukraine.
What information do we have about drone attacks in Russia.
More and more people have been accusing drone attacks happening in Russia lately.
On Tuesday, the defense ministry of Russia announced that they shot down two small aircrafts in the sky near Moscow. They also stopped two more aircrafts in the air near the border of Ukraine.
Authorities also stated that a Russian military aircraft destroyed a Ukrainian surveillance boat in the Black Sea on Tuesday. The boat was sailing close to Russian gas production sites.
Ukraine did not admit to being responsible for any drone invasions on Tuesday – but President Volodymyr Zelensky has said before that attacks on Russia are something that will happen and is justifiable. -
Two dead after shelling in Russian border region, Belgorod
Governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has revealed that two women lost their lives in a shelling incident in the Russian border region.
The victims were traveling in a car near Maslova Pristan when they were struck by shrapnel.
In the neighboring Bryansk and Kursk regions, officials reported that buildings had been damaged in shelling and that there was an overnight drone attack. However, Ukrainian officials have not yet provided any comments on the matter.
Kyiv has consistently denied involvement in previous attacks across the border, asserting that these incidents are carried out by Russian anti-government groups.
Governor Gladkov also mentioned that two individuals in another vehicle were wounded in the shelling incident in Belgorod.
The Freedom of Russian Legion (FRL), one of the prominent anti-Kremlin paramilitary groups, claimed to have been engaged in military operations in the nearby village of Novaya Tavolzhanka.
They stated that two civilians were killed when Russian artillery mistakenly targeted their vehicle, believing it contained FRL members. However, these claims have not been independently verified.
Long-range drones also hit two towns in the Smolensk region, the local governor there said, while the Kaluga region’s head said an explosion had been reported in a forest.
Recent weeks have seen an increase in cross border attacks. On Thursday eight people were wounded in shelling in Belgorod and the latest strikes come more than a week after one of the most significant cross-border raids since the war began.
On Friday Ukrainian officials said air defences had shot down about 30 missiles and drones fired by Russia.
Russia has launched more than 20 missile and drone attacks on Ukraine over the past month.
Speaking from Helsinki on Friday, US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “a strategic failure”.
America’s top diplomat was speaking during a visit to Finland, Nato’s newest member, as part of a series of trips to several Nordic countries.
He said the invasion had weakened Russia diplomatically, economically and militarily while strengthening the European Union, Nato and Ukrainian national identity.
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Russian Belgorod raiders support Ukraine but find it difficult to adopt Kyiv’s position
Russian dissident fighters who had just returned from a raid in their own country paraded around Ukraine with an armoured car as a prize, but they had trouble explaining their actions in line with Kyiv‘s official line.
In a two-day attack that was extensively documented on social media, Ukrainian authorities claim the fighters were acting independently when they sped across the Russian border and started shooting up Russian communities in the Belgorod region earlier this week.
The Ukrainian security forces are in charge of the members of the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion, both of which are made up of Russian citizens waging war in Ukraine against their motherland.
“Was this an independent action uncoordinated with the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, or did they give you instructions?” I asked Dennis Nikitin, leader of the far-right Russian Volunteer Corps on Wednesday.
He replied, “Obviously, everything we do, every decision we make behind, beyond the border [in Russia] … is our own decision.”
But he went on to admit a certain “encouragement and help and aid.”
“What we do, obviously, we can ask our, let’s say, [Ukrainian] comrades, friends for their assistance in planning. What do you think about this? Could you tell us if this is a plausible mission? Would it help Ukraine in this fight or would it make things worse?” Nikitin said.
“They will say ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘this is a good idea’, ‘this is a bad idea’. So this is a kind of encouragement and help and aid.”
Nikitin didn’t actually do a stage wink, but he might as well have.
Similar signals came from “Caesar,” the nickname of the spokesman for the Freedom for Russia Legion, a more moderate anti-Putin formation of a few hundred men which is also dedicated to ending the war in Ukraine and to toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Asked whether it was true that the Russian dissidents had used some US-made MRAP armored vehicles – perhaps even vehicles donated by the United States to Ukraine – Caesar said: “We used Humvees also. We buy them in international shops, war shops. Yeah … everyone who has some money can do it.”
He was wryly and consciously repeating a Russian propaganda trope dating back to Moscow’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, when the Kremlin denied its troops were on the ground and suggested that pro-Moscow rebels had bought Russian vehicles on the open market.
The use of US vehicles in the operation has provoked minor consternation in Washington.
“The US government has not approved any third party transfers of equipment to paramilitary organizations outside the Ukrainian Armed Forces, nor has the Ukrainian government requested any such transfers,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Tuesday, emphasizing that the US would “keep a close eye” on the issue.
The West has insisted that Ukraine not use weapons it receives from members of the NATO security alliance inside Russia. A strike against a Russian target inside Russia itself using the UK-provided Storm Shadow cruise missile, for example, would risk the appearance of bringing NATO into direct conflict with Moscow.
But MRAP armored vehicles are armored trucks. It’s the weapons systems that really matter.
Ukraine doesn’t want any credit for the raid into Russia. So it has used Russians to do the job, and claimed they’re not under Ukrainian orders, this time.
Nevertheless, Kyiv will be delighted by the result. The dissident raid has had the desired effect – destabilizing Russia.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary company that’s been fighting in Ukraine alongside Russia’s military has already seized upon the raid as a proof of the military’s ineptitude.
“Sabotage and reconnaissance forces calmly enter Russia and march, uploading videos, driving their tanks, armoured infantry vehicles. Where’s the guarantee that they will not enter Moscow?…So far as I understand, nobody gives a sh*t about residents of Belgorod region,” thundered Prigozhin on Tuesday in an interview with pro-Russian blogger Konstantin Dolgov.
“I say to the elite of the Russian Federation – you sons of bitches, gather your children. Send them to war. When you come to a funeral and start burying them, people will say: ‘It is all fair now.’”
If not, warned the mercenary leader who still claims to back Putin, “All these divisions can end in what is a revolution, just like in 1917.
It’s safe to assume that the scions of Moscow’s nomenklatura will not suddenly be flooding through the doors of recruitment offices for either the armed forces or Prigozhin’s dogs of war.
But chaos in the ranks of the enemy amounts to victory, according to the eponymous doctrine of Russian armed forces general Valery Gerazimov.
And Caesar is confident that Moscow’s been rattled.
“They [Russians defending Belgorod] were too stupid and too slow. About five hours, about five hours [to react]. They only try to understand what’s happened. It was about one mechanized company to, to force the counterattack. Yesterday, we destroyed those mechanized company. We bring them heavy casualties,” he said in English picked up in his school in Russia.
“It’s just a little beginning, just for reconnaissance,” he added.
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Russia accidentally bombs one of its own cities
Russia has acknowledged that it accidentally bombed one of its own cities close to the Ukrainian border, setting off a huge explosion that left three people hospitalised and caused damage to neighbouring structures.
A Kremlin spokeswoman said that ‘aviation munitions’ fired by a Su-34 supersonic fighter-bomber jet attacked the Russian city of Belgorod late on Thursday.
The type of weapon deployed was not confirmed by the defence ministry.
A Sukhoi Su-34 air force aircraft accidently discharged aviation ammunition as it flew over Belgorod, according to the report. A formal statement was read.
Video evidence shows a 70ft-wide crater caused by the blast with debris strewn around the scene.
The footage shows piles of concrete lining the street, several damaged cars and a building with broken windows.
It also appears to show a car upside down on the roof of a store.
Regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov declared a state of emergency following the explosion, and confirmed two women had suffered from injuries.
In a message on Telegram, he confirmed that there was a large crater in the middle of the city, and that four cars and four apartment buildings had been damaged by the blast.
‘It was miraculous no-one died – at least according to official figures,’ reported journalist Dmitry Kolezev.
‘Apparently the ministry decided that admitting self-bombing is better than admitting that the Armed Forces of Ukraine can inflict such powerful strikes on Russian cities.’
The bomb is suspected to have been a modernised FAB-500M62, a Soviet-designed 500-kilogram (1,100 lb) general purpose air-dropped bomb with a high-explosive warhead.
It is supposed to be ‘high precision’, and has been used to strike targets in Ukraine.
These munitions have reportedly been rushed into service in the war, and are liable to errors.
OSINT analyst Kirill Mikhailov cited by Agentstvo said: ‘In order for everything to work, the bomb must first properly separate, then its wings must open properly and the navigation system should work…
‘Something went wrong in this process.’
Belgorod is around 25 miles from the Ukrainian frontier, and just 50 miles away from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.
The area serves as an important staging ground for Russia’s ongoing invasion, and Moscow continues to train soldiers and store fuel/ammunition there.
In July, Mr Gladkov said a Ukrainian missile attack on Belgorod had left at least four dead.
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Russian warplane bombs own city accidentally, leaves city centre damaged
The city of Belgorod, which is close to the Ukrainian border, was unintentionally attacked, according to the Moscow defence ministry.
The explosion produced a massive hole in the middle of the city that was roughly 20 metres (60 feet) broad, according to regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.According to him, numerous buildings were damaged, and two people suffered injuries.
According to the ministry, a Su-34 fighter-bomber jet unintentionally released aviation ordnance.
Image caption,Two women were reportedly injured and several buildings were damaged The incident took place at 22:15 local time (19:15 GMT) on Thursday, Russian news agencies said. An investigation is under way.
Photos and videos on social media show apartments damaged by the blast, while one image appears to a show a car on the roof of a building.
Image caption,A photo shows the aftermath of the blast Belgorod – a city of 370,000 – is around 25 miles (40 km) from the Ukrainian border. It lies just north of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, and people there have been living in fear of Ukrainian shelling since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.
Russian jets also regularly fly over the city on their way to Ukraine.
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Belgorod shooting: Gunmen kill 11 Russian trainee soldiers in an attack
On Saturday, gunmen killed 11 people at a Russian military training facility.
Two individuals opened fire on a group of volunteers who had enlisted to fight in Ukraine during a firearms training session, according to state-owned news agency Ria.
The attackers were from a former Soviet republic, the Russian defence ministry said, but did not give further details.
They were also shot dead during the incident in the Belgorod region of Russia, which borders Ukraine.
A further 15 people were wounded.
“During a firearms training session with individuals who voluntarily expressed a desire to participate in the special military operation [against Ukraine], the terrorists opened fire with small arms on the personnel of the unit,” Ria cited a defence ministry statement as saying.
“As a result of the shooting, 11 people were fatally wounded. Another 15 people with wounds of varying severity were taken to a medical facility,” it said.
The local governor said no residents of the Belgorod region had been killed or injured.
Last month Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a mobilisation of 300,000 Russians who had previously done compulsory military service.
The order sparked protests across Russia and a surge of people attempting to leave the country.
Soon after the mobilisation was announced, a military recruiter was shot at an enlistment office in Siberia.
Last week, Putin announced that over 200,000 people had already been mobilized, and he saw no need for additional mobilization.