Two civilians were killed on Friday in a Ukrainian shelling attack on Russia’s Belgorod Region, local Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
Several settlements in the region came under cross-border fire, Gladkov wrote on Telegram, adding that “there are fatalities.”
The governor said Ukrainian forces shelled a road in the village of Maslova Pristan, in the region’s Shebekinsky District, which had already been targeted by intense attacks this week.
“Shell fragments hit cars as they were passing by. Two women were traveling in one of them. They died on the spot from their injuries,” the official said.
Two civilians were also injured in another vehicle, according to Gladkov. One man suffered shrapnel wounds to the chest, while the other was hit in the lower part of his body. They were rushed to hospital in a serious condition, he added.
According to local media, many Shebekinsky District residents fled the area in cars during the Ukrainian bombardments. Drivers were seen parking their vehicles on roadsides and waiting out the attacks in areas deemed to be safer.
Eleven artillery shells were launched at the village of Tishanka in Volokonovsky District on Friday. There were no casualties, but windows were shattered in several homes and power lines were damaged, the governor said.
In the village of Leonovka in Valuysky District, the front of a granary building suffered damaged, but there were no fatalities, he added.
Reporting from Belgorod Region, RT correspondent Valentin Gorshenin said a checkpoint on the Russia-Ukraine border was also shelled on Friday while many civilians were there.
The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the targets of numerous missile, mortar and drone attacks by Ukrainian forces since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The strikes have targeted energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of property.
On Thursday, the Russian military said it had repelled an attempted incursion by Ukrainian forces into Belgorod Region. Kiev was aiming to “carry out a terrorist act against the civilian population of the town of Shebekino,” the Defense Ministry claimed. Two Ukrainian motorized infantry companies, reinforced by tanks, tried to cross into Russia, but suffered heavy losses and were pushed back, according to the ministry.