CNN
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Russia saw the effects of its war on Ukraine dramatically reverberate on its own territory on Wednesday, after a “massive” attack injured four people in Belgorod and preliminary information showed that a drone had crashed and sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the south.
Eight apartment buildings, four houses, a school and two administrative buildings were destroyed during the attack in Shebekino, a village in the border region of Belgorod, its governor said, while the oblast became a hotbed of misguided violence.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said there was more shelling in a border area later on Wednesday, which he blamed on Ukrainian forces.
Speaking in a live broadcast, he said that an industrial plant near the town of Shebekino was hit. “The situation in Shebekino is not good,” Gladkov said in a live broadcast. “There was shooting in Shebekino, there was a fire in one of the industrial enterprises.”
On Tuesday night, Gladkov said that one person was killed and two were injured in an attack on a temporary accommodation center.
And a drone crashed into the Ilsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region, east of the annexed territory of Crimea, starting a fire in the early hours of Wednesday morning, local officials there said. The fire was soon extinguished.
The incidents come a day after a drone attack in Moscow, which Russia blamed on Ukraine. All eight planes of the type of unmanned aerial vehicles that were launched in the capital of Russia were destroyed, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
Kyiv has not yet commented on the drone attack or on Wednesday’s incidents in Belgorod and Krasnodar. The Ukrainian government generally does not confirm or deny strikes inside Russian territory.
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Elsewhere on Wednesday, a drone attack was launched in the Bryansk region of Russia, state news agency RIA Novosti reported. About 10 drones tried to attack the Klimovsky district and were shot down or intercepted, RIA reported citing emergency services.
The series of events – following last week’s invasion of Belgorod by anti-Putin Russians fighting alongside the Ukrainian military – marks a new turn in a conflict that is increasingly at home. by the Russians, 15 months after Moscow launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The strikes separately hit Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine on Wednesday. Five people were killed and 19 wounded in Ukrainian shelling in the village of Karpaty, in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory of Luhansk, the acting head of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic said on Telegram.
And a senior Russian-appointed official in Zaporizhzhia said there had been a series of explosions in Polohy, a Russian-held town near the front lines that many observers expected to be the target of an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive. Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Russian-formed council of Zaporizhzhia’s civil-military administration, said on Telegram: “It was loud in Polohy. A series of explosions were heard in the town.”
Governor of Belgorod Oblast in Russia
The images released by the governor of Belgorod apparently show the results of the shooting in the region.
Ukraine denied involvement in Tuesday’s attack on Moscow, although a senior official made it clear that Russia was getting a taste of its own medicine after months of bombing Ukrainian cities.
“Of course, we are happy to see and predict the increase in attacks,” said adviser to the president of Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak. “But of course, we have nothing to do with it directly.”
Russian officials reacted on Wednesday with considerable anger. Speaking about the situation in Belgorod, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN in a regular call with journalists on Wednesday: “We are really worried about this situation, the shelling of civilian objects continues there.”
“In this case, too, by the way, we haven’t heard a single word of condemnation from anyone from the collective West, so far,” said Peskov. “The situation is alarming. Steps are being taken. ”
Lev Sergeev/Reuters
A damaged multi-storey apartment building after a reported drone attack in Moscow on Tuesday.
“I woke up from explosions and the sound of breaking glass,” a woman in Belgorod told Russian news outlet Izvestia. “My husband and I immediately jumped up and ran to the bathroom … and now we’re lost. The city center is all scattered.”
White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told CNN Wednesday that the US is not sure who is coordinating the drone strikes. “We’re still trying to get information out here and develop some kind of sense of what happened … but I can’t tell you that we have any specific information at this point.”
Kirby added that the Biden administration “has been clear, privately and publicly, to Ukrainians that we do not support attacks on Russian soil.”
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for the drone attack in the Moscow region, calling it a “clear sign of terrorist activity.” Putin admitted that “Kyiv chose the path of terrorizing Russian citizens and attacking residential buildings.”
Putin said on Tuesday that the city’s air defenses were working normally but there was “work to be done to make them better.” Asked to clarify what the Russian president said, Peskov said: “The system is working effectively, but there is room for improvement. Work will continue to improve the air defense system.”
The Freedom for Russia Legion, a group that claimed responsibility for last week’s attack in Belgorod, posted an “additional” recruitment drive for drone pilots on its Telegram channel after the -drone attack in Moscow on Tuesday. The legion, made up of Russian citizens who fought in Ukraine against their homeland, joked: “Graduates of the course have the opportunity to practice their skills.”
But early signals from the West indicate it has little patience for the Kremlin’s efforts to frame the narrative.
“The ‘Russia is the victim’ argument is so tired and so ridiculous that even the Russian people should see it for what it is – an overused and desperate response by the Kremlin to try and explain the litany of strategic mistakes that destroyed Russia’s once proud global reputation,” said UK military adviser Ian Stubbs during a speech on Wednesday in Vienna.
The incidents come as Ukraine prepares for an expected counter-offensive against Russian forces, and follows days of missile bombing of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities by Moscow.
On Monday Russia appeared to be changing its tactics by attacking Kyiv with rockets and missiles during the day, hours after a separate wave of strikes overnight.