A bombing blamed on kyiv killed at least five people on Thursday and injured 18 in the Russian town of Belgorod, regularly targeted by Ukrainian fire.
“According to provisional data, five people were killed in Belgorod, including a child, and 18 people were injured, including 5 children,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram account.
The Russian Ministry of Health subsequently announced on Telegram the deaths of six people and 17 injured.
According to him, in Belgorod, several apartments, homes and cars were damaged by gunfire, as well as a small shopping center and the compound of an “industrial company”.
Earlier, state news agency Ria Novosti reported that the bombing had hit a shopping center, publishing a video showing a store with blown out windows and an entrance littered with debris.
Several bodies were visible there.
“Ukrainian rockets neutralized”
Shots also damaged two houses in the Belgorod district, which surrounds the city, according to the governor.
The Russian Defense Ministry has so far limited itself to saying that as of midday Thursday rockets launched by the Ukrainian army on the Belgorod region had been neutralized.
At the end of December, the regional capital was the target of a Ukrainian strike which left 25 dead, the deadliest against civilians on Russian soil since the launch of Moscow's offensive against Ukraine in February 2022.
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Bombings on this region then increased, in response to those of Moscow's forces in Ukraine, undermining the Kremlin's discourse according to which the daily lives of Russians are not disrupted by the conflict.
In mid-January, the authorities in the Belgorod region announced strengthening their security measures for schools and shopping centers.