At least seven people were killed and 15 injured. “The city and the oblast were subjected to massive shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Belgorod Oblast Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Ukraine rejected the allegations and spoke of a “Russian provocation”.
“When a grenade hit an apartment building, the entire entrance area from the tenth to the first floor collapsed,” said Governor Gladkow. Photos of a destroyed building were published on social networks on Sunday. The roof of the building collapsed and also buried relief workers.
Provocation of Russia?
The Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform quoted the head of the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, on the incident. The Russian information is therefore “not true”. The house in Belgorod was blown up by bombs or other explosions, Kovalenko wrote on Telegram. The situation seems like a “provocation by Russia to justify further attacks on Ukraine.”
Missile alarms had previously been triggered in the region bordering Ukraine, which was attacked by Russia. As a result of the war of aggression once morest Ukraine, Russia’s border region is also repeatedly under fire. However, victims and damage are not comparable to the consequences of the war in Ukraine.
Captured several Ukrainian villages
Meanwhile, Russian troops are advancing in Kharkiv and have taken control of several Ukrainian villages over the weekend, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. Ukrainian military chief Olexandr Syrskyj spoke on Sunday of a difficult situation in the region in northeastern Ukraine. But his country’s troops would do everything in their power to hold the position. With the start of the Russian offensive in Kharkiv a few days ago, there is a threat of the opening of a new front in northeastern Ukraine. The city of the same name, Kharkiv, is the second largest city in the country following Kiev and is around 400 kilometers as the crow flies from the capital.
According to the governor, more than 4,000 people were evacuated from areas near the border following a Russian advance in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv. “A total of 4,073 people were evacuated,” regional governor Oleh Synegubow said on online networks on Sunday. He also stated that a 63-year-old was killed in artillery fire in the village of Hlyboke on Sunday and a 38-year-old was injured in Vovchansk.
On Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported the capture of five villages in the region. Russia has attempted to seize the border region of Kharkiv since its invasion began in February 2022; In the fall of 2022, his army had to largely withdraw from there. But like everywhere on the front, in this region since the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023, it is the Russian armed forces that currently have the initiative.
