At least three people were killed and hundreds of homes damaged in what appeared to be a Ukrainian airstrike on Russian border city Belgorod early Sunday morning.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed several explosions hit the city of nearly 400,000, which lies 25 miles (40km) north of the border with Ukraine.
At least 11 apartment buildings and 39 houses were damaged, including five entirely destroyed, Gladkov said via messaging app Telegram.
The sound was so strong that I jumped up, I woke up, got very scared and started screaming,’ a resident of the city told Reuters.
They added that the blasts took place at around 3am (midnight GMT).
‘The missile hit residential buildings about 20 metres from my house,’ the resident said.
‘All the windows in our house were shattered, the doors came out of alignment.’
Senior Russian lawmaker Andrei Klishas accused Ukraine of shelling Belgorod and called for a stern response.
‘The death 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 severe – including a military – response,’ Klishas wrote on Telegram.
Moscow has accused Kyiv of numerous attacks on Belgorod and other regions bordering Ukraine since Russia’s February 24 invasion.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility but has described the incidents as payback and ‘karma’ for Russia’s actions.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not independently verify the Russian accounts.
Meanwhile in the Russian-occupied southern Ukraine city of Melitopol, Ukrainian forces hit a military base with more than 30 strikes on Sunday, the city’s exiled mayor said in a video address on Telegram.
The base had been ‘taken out of action,’ Ivan Fedorov said.
A Moscow-installed official said several private residential houses near the airfield were damaged.
‘Shells fell on the territory of the airfield.
‘There were no casualties,’ Evgeny Balitsky, head of the Russia-installed council in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, wrote on Telegram.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said its air force had flown some 15 sorties ‘in virtually all directions of hostilities.’
