Russia vows revenge after airstrike on city near Ukraine border kills 21 people
The latest attack is one of the deadliest on Russian soil since its conflict with Ukraine started and comes only days before the start of a new year. ITV News' Graham Stothard reports
Russia has vowed retaliation following an airstrike on the border city of Belgorod, which killed at least 21 people, including three children.
A further 110 others were injured during Saturday's attack, according to the region's governor Vyacheslav Gladkov . He said among the wounded are 17 children.
Images on social media showed burning cars and plumes of black smoke rising among damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded. One strike hit close to a public ice rink in the very heart of the city.
The attack followed an 18-hour aerial bombardment which saw Russia send over 120 missiles and dozens of drones into Ukraine, killing at least 39 civilians.
It was one of the biggest strikes on Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russia's Defence Ministry said it identified the ammunition used in the Belgorod strike as Czech-made Vampire rockets and Olkha cluster munitions. It provided no additional information, and it has not been possible to verify the claims.
Accusing Kyiv of an "indiscriminate" strike in a statement on social media, the ministry said: "This crime will not go unpunished."
Russia's military has since launched strikes on its western neighbour, on the city of Kharkiv, in return.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the Belgorod attack, and that the country’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, was ordered to join a delegation of medical personnel and rescue workers traveling to the city from Moscow.
Russian diplomats also called for a meeting of the UN Security Council in connection with the strike.
Speaking to Russia’s state news agency, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Britain and the United States were guilty of encouraging Kyiv to carry out what she described as a “terrorist attack.”
She also placed blame on EU countries who had supplied Ukraine with weapons. In a statement, the ministry said: “Silence in response to the unbridled barbarity of Ukraine’s Nazis and their puppeteers and accomplices from ‘civilized democracies’ will be akin to complicity in their bloody deeds.”
Earlier on Saturday, Moscow officials had reported shooting down 32 Ukrainian drones over the country’s Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol, and Kursk regions.
They also reported that cross-border shelling had killed two other people in Russia. A man died and four other people were injured when a missile struck a home in the Belgorod region late on Friday evening.
A nine-year-old child was killed in a separate incident in the Bryansk region, officials added. Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula.
However, larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russia’s ongoing aerial attacks have parked concern for Ukraine’s neighbours, including Poland.
Warsaw said on Friday that an unknown object had entered Polish airspace before vanishing off radar, adding that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.
Speaking to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti on Saturday, Russia’s charge d’affaires in Poland, Andrei Ordash, said: "We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated."
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