At least four civilians were killed and 27 injured in bombing raids on Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine on Friday, where a sixth wave of attacks has hit the capital Kiev in six days.
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The Belgorod region has been the target of attacks of unprecedented intensity on Russian territory for several days since the beginning of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.
On Friday, the regional governor said shells fired by Ukrainian forces hit a road near the city of Chebekino, about 10 kilometers from Ukraine, which is frequently bombed.
“Shrapper hit passing cars. In one of them, two women (…) died at the site of their injuries,” Vyacheslav Gladkov said, adding that two men were also seriously injured.
In the evening in the village of Sobolevka, two more civilians were killed in a bomb attack with multiple Grad-class rocket launchers, injuring six others, including two children, Mr Gladkov reported.
- Listen to the chronicle of Loïc Tassé, specialist in international politics, on the microphone of Benoit Dutrizac QUB radio :
Attacks on the Belgorod region have intensified in recent days, as Kiev said it was preparing for a major offensive against territories captured by Russian forces in Ukraine.
The hardest-hit area is the town near the Chebekino border, with a population of 40,000, some of whom have fled. “Yesterday more than 850 shells fell on the district,” noted Mr. Gladkov.
On Thursday, the Russian army claimed to have used its artillery and air force to repel a Ukrainian attempt at an “invasion” into the Belgorod region, a week after a spectacular incursion by gunmen that caused an uproar in Russia.
These attacks on Russian soil were alleged by groups claiming to be Russian and fighting for Kiev, and Ukrainian authorities denied any involvement.
Faced with the barrage of gunfire, nearly 2,500 people fled to the regional capital of Belgorod, where they were housed in makeshift housing centres, the city’s mayor Valentin Demidov told AFP.
An AFP journalist on Friday visited a converted stadium in Belgorod that could seat almost 1,000 people. The situation in the city was quiet.
Russian authorities also reported the deaths of three civilians in a Ukrainian fire on Friday in the occupied cities of Donetsk and Makiivka in eastern Ukraine.
Kiev was attacked by a new wave of explosive drones and missiles at dawn, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, adding there were no casualties. This is the sixth attack on the Ukrainian capital in six days.
“Tonight the enemy used 15 cruise missiles and 18 Iranian ‘Shahed’ attack drones for attacks – all of these air targets were destroyed by our defenders,” the Ukrainian military said.
A few hours later, the Russian army claimed to have bombed and “attacked” Ukrainian anti-aircraft systems covering “important military infrastructure” during the night.
Russia has increasingly carried out drone and missile attacks on Kiev since early May, often at night, a tactic denounced by Ukraine as aimed at terrorizing civilians.
At least three people, including a child, were killed in one of those attacks in Kiev on Thursday morning.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, two people were killed by shelling in the Kharkiv region and another in the north-eastern Sumy region on Friday.
On a diplomatic level, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is on Friday in Finland, a Nordic country bordering Russia that recently joined NATO.
On that occasion, Mr. Blinken rejected any unfavorable ceasefire for Kiev, stressing that further arming and strengthening of Ukraine was the only way to achieve “real peace”.
He also felt that the attack in Ukraine had become a “strategic failure” for Moscow.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy admitted on Friday that his country’s membership of NATO is “impossible” as long as the war rages on. The day before, he had called on the European heads of state and government gathered in Moldova to stop harboring “doubts” about Kiev’s entry into the Atlantic Alliance.
“Such statements show that the Kiev regime is not ready, does not want to and does not have the means to solve the existing problems at the negotiating table,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reacted on Friday.
He reiterated that Moscow will continue to achieve its “goals” and defend “its security.” “This precludes such an expansion of the (Atlantic) alliance and its rapprochement with our border,” he stressed.
The Chinese envoy to Ukraine, after a trip to Europe back in Beijing, acknowledged that “many difficulties” prevented Russia and Ukraine from starting peace talks.