Russia’s Belgorod region is restoring electricity and hot water after Ukrainian missile strikes caused widespread outages and injured at least three civilians, the governor said on Monday.
Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukraine had targeted the region’s infrastructure, forcing certain facilities to switch to backup power generators and had twice struck the regional capital – Belgorod – with six warheads in total.
Unverified social media footage showed what looked like a powerful missile attack on a power station in Belgorod, with a series of loud explosions followed by smoke rising into the sky.
Reuters could not verify the footage, and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine, whose own power infrastructure comes under regular attack from Russia.
Gladkov said Kyiv’s forces had shelled other parts of the region, which borders Ukraine, and had launched at least 76 attack drones in the last 24 hours, some of which had been shot down near residential areas.
The Russian Defence Ministry said it had shot down 21 Ukrainian drones over Belgorod overnight.
Gladkov, who posted footage of Belgorod’s philharmonic orchestra playing by torchlight during one of the missile attacks, said emergency repair crews had worked through the night to restore power.
Russia Strikes Kyiv
Meanwhile, early on Sunday, Russia unleashed hundreds of drones and missiles on Kyiv and other regions, killing at least four and injuring dozens in one of the capital’s most sustained assaults since the war began.
Neighbouring Poland closed its airspace near two southeastern cities and its air force scrambled jets in response until the danger had passed.
Ukraine’s military said that Russia launched 595 drones and 48 missiles overnight, and its air defences shot down 568 drones and 43 missiles. It noted that the main target of the strike was the capital Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack, which lasted more than 12 hours, killed four people, including a child, with two of the deaths occurring at a Kyiv cardiology clinic.
He said 80 people were injured in the strikes and factories, residential buildings and energy-generating sites were damaged.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday it had carried out a “massive” attack on Ukraine using long-range air- and sea-based weapons and drones to target military infrastructure, including airfields.
(With inputs from Reuters)
