Russian Emergencies Ministry staff assess damage in Ukraine’s attack. Photo: RT.
Russian officials blamed Kiev for the attack, which came a day after an 18-hour aerial bombardment across Ukraine that the country said killed at least 39 civilians.
Images of Belgorod on social media showed cars on fire and plumes of black smoke rising between damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded. An attack occurred near a public skating rink in the heart of the city.
RT quoted the Russian Ministry of Defense as saying on Saturday that Kiev used banned weapons in the attack on the city of Belgorod, specifically the Olkha missile system carrying cluster bomb warheads. Russia called the attack a “crime”. This type of weapon has been banned by more than 110 countries under the United Nations convention since 2008 due to the extremely dangerous level it causes to civilians. Its use in densely populated areas could lead to devastating consequences.
The Olkha system is capable of firing 12 guided missiles in a salvo, hitting targets at a maximum range of 70 to 130 km depending on the type of system.
According to the Russian military, another system also used is the Czech-made RM-70 Vampire – this is a heavier upgraded version of the Soviet Union’s BM-21 Grad multi-purpose rocket launcher.
Russian air defenses intercepted most of the missiles, but some of them hit the city. The Russian Defense Ministry added that “in the event of a direct strike by Olkha missiles equipped with cluster bombs… the consequences would be much more serious.”
Previously, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said that the attack claimed the lives of 14 people, including 2 children, and injured 108 people, including 15 children. “This crime will not go unpunished,” the Russian military said.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed of the situation and that the country’s Health Minister, Mikhail Murashko, had been ordered to join a delegation of medical staff and rescue workers traveling from Moscow to Belgorod.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian newspaper quoted a security source in the country as saying that the Ukrainian Defense Forces attacked Russian military facilities in Belgorod Oblast, but it was the unprofessional actions of the Russian air defense forces that caused the attack. Debris fell in the city center.
According to the Russians, 10 fires broke out in the city after the explosions. An air raid warning was issued and people were urged to seek shelter.
“The Ukrainian Defense Forces are attacking a number of targets, especially military facilities.
The destruction of civilian infrastructure that we are seeing in Belgorod is the result of unprofessional actions by Russian air defense forces as well as deliberate and planned provocations” – source of the Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper said.
The Russian military accused Kiev of seeking to draw public attention away from its failures on the front lines, as well as inciting Moscow to launch retaliatory attacks of a similar nature. The ministry affirmed that Russia only attacks military targets and infrastructure directly related to these military facilities.
Earlier on Saturday, Moscow officials claimed to have shot down 32 Ukrainian drones over the Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions of the country.
They also reported that cross-border shelling killed two others in Russia. A man was killed and four others were injured when a rocket struck a private house in the Belgorod region late Friday night, and a 9-year-old child was killed in a separate incident in the Bryansk region.
Cities across western Russia have been regularly attacked by drones since May, and Russian officials say Kiev is the culprit. Ukrainian officials never admitted responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula. However, previous larger air strikes against Russia followed intense attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone attacks against Ukraine continued on Saturday, with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reporting that 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones were shot falls across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv regions.