Fire at Russian military site near Ukraine – governor

A blaze broke out on Sunday at a Russian military site in the Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.

“A fire has occurred on the territory of one of the sites belonging to the Defense Ministry,” the governor wrote on social media. He added that officials were determining the damage and if there were any casualties. Gladkov later added that a civilian was lightly injured.

Photos and videos posted on social media purportedly show a large cloud of smoke in the area.

The governor said the emergency services have been deployed to the site. The Defense Ministry has not yet commented on the matter.

On Wednesday, a fire broke out at a weapons depot in the same region.

Moscow has been accusing Ukraine of cross-border shelling since it launched its military offensive against the neighboring country in late February. On April 1, Russian officials said that a pair of Ukrainian helicopters launched missiles at an oil depot in Belgorod. Two week later, the village of Zhuravlevka was shelled, and two people were injured, according to Gladkov.

Ukraine has not so far claimed responsibility for the attacks on Russian soil.

Russia attacked Ukraine following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.