Two men killed a group volunteering to take part in the war in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region which borders Ukraine
Two men killed a group volunteering to take part in the war in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region which borders Ukraine
Gunmen shot and killed 11 people at a Russian military training ground, the Russian Defense Ministry said, the latest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s military since invasion of ukraine,
The RIA news agency, citing the ministry, said on Saturday that 15 others were injured in a shooting in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, when two men shot a group that volunteered. Went to take part in the war.
It said two attackers—a citizen of an unspecified former Soviet republic—were shot. Some Russian independent media outlets reported that the casualties were higher than official figures.
“In our region, a terrible incident occurred in the territory of one of the military units,” Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said early on Sunday.
“Many soldiers killed and wounded … Among the wounded and killed there are no residents of the Belgorod region,” Mr Gladkov said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app.
attack a week later A bridge damaged in CrimeaThe peninsula was annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014. Earlier in the war, Russia’s major in the Black Sea exploded and sank.
The RIA quoted a Defense Ministry statement as saying, “During a firearms training session with individuals who voluntarily expressed their willingness to participate in a special military operation (against Ukraine), terrorists attacked the unit’s personnel. Firing with small arms.”
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A day earlier, Mr Putin said Russia should end calling for reservists in two weeks, promising to end a divisive mobilization that has called for hundreds of thousands of people to fight in Ukraine and in large numbers from the country. ran away.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser Oleksey Erestovich said in a YouTube interview that the attackers were from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan and were firing at others after a debate over religion.
Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim nation, while nearly half of Russians follow various branches of Christianity. The Russian ministry said the attackers were from a nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, a grouping of nine ex-Soviet republics, including Tajikistan.
Reuters A prominent commentator on the war was not able to immediately confirm Erestovich’s comments, or independently verify casualties and other details of the incident.
Elsewhere, Mr. Zelensky said Ukrainian troops had captured the strategic eastern city of Bakhmut despite repeated Russian attacks, while the situation in the larger Donbass region remained very difficult.
The Russian army has repeatedly tried to seize Bakhmut, which is located on the main road leading to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Both are located in the Donetsk region.
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The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday that in the 24 hours to Sunday morning, Russian forces targeted more than 30 towns and villages in Ukraine, carrying out five missiles and 23 airstrikes and 60 rocket attacks.
In response, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 32 strikes targeting 24 Russian targets.
Fighting is particularly intense in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk and the strategically important Kherson province to the south, three of the four provinces Putin declared as part of Russia last month.
The Russian-backed administration said on Sunday that shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged an administrative building in the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk region.
Kirill Stremusov, a Russian-established official in the Kherson region, said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that Russian forces had repelled an attack by Ukrainian troops in the region and that the situation there was “under control”.
Ukraine’s southern command said on Saturday there were repeated attacks on positions of its forces and a small “firing battle” near the village of Trifonivka in the Kherson region.
The Russian army also fired about 20 Russian-made Grad rockets on the right bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that its forces killed more than 50 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed five tanks near the Kakhovka reservoir on the Dnipro River.
Reuters Battlefield was not able to independently confirm the reports.
Although Ukrainian troops have seized thousands of square kilometers (miles) of land in recent attacks to the east and south, officials say progress is likely to be slow after Kyiv’s military faces more resolute resistance.
The Ukrainian military and civilians are relying on Starlink internet service provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company. Musk said on Friday that he could no longer fund the service, but said on Saturday he would continue to do so.
Mr Zelensky said some 65,000 Russians have been killed since the February 24 offensive, far higher than Moscow’s official estimate of 5,937 dead on 21 September. In August the Pentagon said Russia had suffered between 70,000 and 80,000 casualties, either killed or wounded.
Mr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andrey Yermak, said on Telegram on Sunday that Ukraine would emerge victorious in the war because of the continued military aid it receives from the West and the cumulative effect of Western sanctions on Russia’s economy.
“The invasion of Ukraine is strategic and the defeat of Russia is inevitable,” Yermak said.