The crash of a ‘drone’ (unmanned aerial device) on a highway in the Russian region of Belgorod, next to the border with Ukraine, caused two minor injuries on Thursday, local authorities announced.
“An unknown device exploded in Belgorod. According to the first reports, a ‘drone’ fell on the road. Two people were injured,” said the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, quoted by the French agency AFP.
Gladkov posted a photograph of an alleged waste of the ‘drone’ on the Telegram social network.
Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov said the explosion took place near a gas station in the city of more than half a million people, capital of the region of the same name.
The incident came just hours after the Russian military announced it had repelled a large-scale border attack by dozens of tank-backed Ukrainian fighters.
Russian authorities also said heavy shelling had targeted the city of Shebekino, population 40,000, located in the same region near the border with Ukraine.
According to an official balance, 13 people were injured in the Belgorod region during the day.
The authorities have started moving civilians to other locations in response to the situation, which has been deteriorating by the day in the region, which is already the target of multiple attacks and incursions, according to AFP.
Moscow’s statement on the alleged Ukrainian offensive along the border was made public hours after two armed groups announced an attack on two towns in Belgorod.
This is the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion, which is said to be made up of Russians who want to overthrow the regime of President Vladimir Putin.
The two groups have been fighting for months alongside the Ukrainian army against Russian forces, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
At the end of May, they claimed an attack on the Belgorod region from Ukraine.
The kyiv government claims to have nothing to do with the actions of these groups on Russian soil, but tolerates their operations on Ukrainian soil.
Information published by the two sides about the course of the war cannot be immediately verified by independent sources.
Source: TSF
