At least 14 dead and 108 injured in an intense Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod

At least fourteen people have died, including two children, and another 108 have been injured in the capital of the Russian region of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, as a result of a major Ukrainian attack in retaliation for the wave of bombings. carried out this Friday by Russian forces in various parts of the country, starting with the capital, kyiv.

According to a new report from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, “in Belgorod, twelve adults and two children have died due to shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” reports the Russian agency TASS.. “Another 108 people were injured, 15 of them children,” the statement added.

The Russian Ministry of Defense had previously reported that Russian air defense systems shot down a total of 13 Ukrainian rockets over the area this Friday.

In this sense, this Saturday the Ministry denounced that the attack was carried out with, among other projectiles, “two Vilkha missiles with prohibited cluster munitions, as well as Czech-made Vampire MLRS rockets.”

The statement indicates that Russian defense systems managed to intercept most of the missiles but they have been able to do nothing to prevent part of the cluster munition from hitting the city.. “If they had exploded directly, the consequences would have been much more serious,” the note adds.

In the statement, the Ministry of Defense accuses “the Kiev regime, which has committed this crime, of trying to distract attention from its defeats on the front and of trying to provoke” Russia.. The Russian Army, adds the Ministry, “only attacks military installations and infrastructure in Ukraine, and will continue to do so, but this crime will not go unpunished.”

In addition to human damage, two cars and ten private homes have been affected to varying degrees, and damage has also occurred to the water supply systems of the city of Belgorod, Gladkov explained.

“Our air defense system has acted over Belgorod (…); several air targets have been shot down when approaching the city,” the region's governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said in a Telegram message.

“As a result of the direct hit of one of the projectiles on a private residential building, a man has died. Four people have been injured,” added the regional leader on the same platform and reported by Interfax.

The Ukrainian attack takes place after the wave of Russian bombings this Friday left 39 dead and 159 injured in Ukraine, according to the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.. The capital, kyiv, has been the most affected town, with at least 16 deaths.

Ukraine blames Russian air defense

In the absence of an official response from Ukraine, sources from the Ukrainian special forces tell 'Pravda' that the destruction in Belgorod falls exclusively on Russia's air defense and that the objectives of the Ukrainian Army in Russian territory are exclusively military.

“The Ukrainian Defense Forces have focused on Russian military facilities in the Belgorod region,” these sources say.

“The destruction of civil infrastructure that we observed there is a consequence of unprofessional actions by the Russian air defense, as well as deliberate and planned provocations,” they add.