At least three people have been killed and hundreds of houses damaged in an air raid on the Russian border town of Belgorod early this morning.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed that several explosions hit the city of nearly 400,000, which is located 40 kilometers north of the border with Ukraine.
At least 11 apartment buildings and 39 houses were damaged, including five completely destroyed, Gladkov said via messaging app Telegram.
“The noise was so strong that I jumped up, woke up, got really scared and started screaming,” a resident of the city told Reuters.
They added that the blast happened around 3 a.m. (midnight GMT).
Footage taken by eyewitnesses in the early hours of this morning shows smoke rising from the city
Footage shows emergency services clearing the blast zone in Belgorod, 40 miles from Ukraine
Five houses were destroyed in the ‘attack’ at 3 a.m. and at least 11 apartment buildings were damaged
“The missile hit residential buildings about 20 meters from my house,” the resident said.
Witness footage shows a different view of the apparent Ukrainian airstrike on Belgorod
“All the windows in our house were smashed, the doors were crooked.”
High-ranking Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas accused Ukraine of shelling Belgorod and called for a stern response.
“The deaths of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Belgorod are a direct act of aggression on the part of Ukraine and require the most serious – including a military – response,” Klishas wrote on Telegram.
Moscow has accused Kiev of numerous attacks on Belgorod and other regions bordering Ukraine since the Russian invasion of February 24.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility but has described the incidents as revenge and “karma” for Russia’s actions.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters was unable to independently verify the Russian accounts.
Video taken early this morning shows huge fireball over strategic Russian city
Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops hit a military base with more than 30 strikes in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol in southern Ukraine on Sunday, the exiled mayor of the city said in a video address to Telegram.
The base had been “deactivated,” Ivan Fedorov said.
An official installed in Moscow said several private residences near the airport were damaged.
The Russian city, populated by 400,000, showed significant battle scars earlier today
Russian forces rushed out of Snake Island on Thursday, just days after Ukrainian forces launched a crippling missile attack on the outpost, leaving equipment behind.
“Shells fell on the territory of the airport.
Emergency services were filmed sprinting to the site of the apparent strike
“There were no casualties,” Evgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-installed council in the southern Zaporizhzhya region, wrote on Telegram.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said the Air Force had flown some 15 missions “in virtually all directions of hostilities.”
“About 20 units of enemy equipment and two field ammunition depots were destroyed.”
Thousands of civilians have been killed and cities razed to the ground since Russia invaded Ukraine in what its Western allies say is an unprovoked war of aggression.
Russia denies targeting civilians in what President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation” to demilitarize and “denazify” its neighbor.
Russia aims to expel Ukrainian troops from Luhansk and Donetsk provinces in the Donbas, where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kiev since Russia’s first military intervention in Ukraine in 2014.
Ukrainian troops describe intense artillery shelling of residential areas, especially around Lysychansk, the last city in Luhansk.
“The Russians are strengthening their positions in the Lysychansk area, the city is on fire,” Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Telegram.
“They attacked the city with inexplicably brutal tactics.”
Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador to Russia of the pro-Moscow self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, told Russian television: “Lysychansk has been brought under control,” but added: “Unfortunately, it has not yet been liberated.”
Russian media showed video of Luhansk militias parading in the streets of Lysychansk, waving flags and cheering, but spokesman for the National Guard of Ukraine, Ruslan Muzychuk, told Ukrainian television that the city remained in Ukrainian hands.
“Now there is heavy fighting near Lysychansk, but fortunately the city is not surrounded and is under the control of the Ukrainian army,” Muzychuk said. Leksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russian troops had finally crossed the Siverskiy Donets River and were approaching the city from the north.
“This is indeed a threat. We will see. I am not ruling out any outcome here. In a day or two everything will become much clearer,” he said.
“The more Western weapons come forward, the more the picture changes in favor of Ukraine.”
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for more weapons from the West, saying its armed forces are severely outnumbered.
Troops who had interrupted the fighting in Konstyantynivka, a market town about 115 km (70 miles) west of Lysychansk, said they had managed to keep the supply road to the embattled city open despite Russian bombing.
“We still use the road as we have to, but it’s within artillery range of the Russians,” said one soldier as comrades relaxed nearby, munching on sandwiches or eating ice cream.
“The Russian tactic at the moment is to shell every building we might find ourselves in. If they destroy it, they move on to the next one,” he said.
Far from the fighting in the east, Russia said it had hit army command posts in Mykolaiv near the vital Black Sea port city of Odessa, where the largest had reported a number of powerful explosions on Saturday.
“The Russian occupiers are launching systematic rocket attacks towards Mykolaiv,” Ukraine’s general staff said on Sunday.
Ukrainian authorities said Friday that another rocket hit an apartment building near Odessa, killing at least 21 people.
A shopping center was hit in the central city of Kremenchuk on Monday, killing at least 19.