Key Points
- Twenty people died and 111 were injured in Belgorod, Russia, after Ukraine missile strikes.
- This comes after Russian missile attacks killed 31 on Ukrainian cities on Friday.
- Russia hit back with strikes on medical facility, apartments and shops in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Russia says 20 people including two children had been killed and 111 injured in "indiscriminate" Ukrainian strikes allegedly including cluster bombs on the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod, and vowed to retaliate.
The Belgorod region, which adjoins northern Ukraine, has like other Russian border zones suffered shelling and drone attacks all year that authorities have blamed on Ukraine, although none have previously been on such a scale.
Newspaper Kommersant cited a source close to the Russian Investigative Committee as saying missiles fired from a multiple rocket launcher in Ukraine's Kharkiv region had hit a skating rink on the central Cathedral Square, a shopping centre and residential buildings.
At least 20 people have died and more than a hundred were injured in a strike on Belgorod in Russia. Credit: EPA
News website Ukrainska Pravda quoted an unnamed security service source as blaming the destruction of civilian infrastructure on "unprofessional actions by Russian air defence, as well as deliberate and planned provocations".
Russia's mission to the United Nations in New York said it had requested a meeting of the Security Council.
Buildings in Belgorod were damaged by Ukrainian shelling, Russia says. Credit: AP
Air raid sirens had earlier sounded all over Belgorod as regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov urged all residents to move to shelters.
"Today, the Kyiv regime attempted an indiscriminate combined strike on the city of Belgorod with two 'Olkha' missiles in a banned cluster configuration, as well as Czech-made Vampire rockets," the Defence Ministry said in a Telegram posting.
"This crime will not go unpunished."'
It said most of the rockets including both the Olkha missiles had been shot down, averting far greater casualties, although fragments had fallen on the city.
Governor Gladkov said 22 apartment buildings had been damaged along with a large number of commercial properties, shopping centres and shops, and that more than 100 cars had been damaged, most of them burned out.
Images posted by the Emergencies Ministry showed at least three burned out cars, and a commercial building with some broken windows. Other images posted online showed black smoke rising from the city.
Two residents said they had seen air defence missiles rising into the sky followed by explosions in the air and then louder blasts.
Russian state-run news agency RIA quoted the Kremlin as saying President Vladimir Putin had sent a team of health and emergency workers to Belgorod.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what it calls a "special military operation", unleashed its biggest air attack of the war on Friday.
Ukraine says Russia retaliated with strikes on Kharkiv medical institution, apartments and shops. Source: EPA / Sergey Kozlov
Russia said its anti-aircraft units had destroyed 13 Ukrainian rockets over the Belgorod region on Friday, as well as 32 drones overnight over the nearby Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions and the Moscow region.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RIA that Britain and the United States had incited Ukraine to carry out "terrorist acts", and said European Union countries must also bear blame for supplying it with weapons.
