A drone struck a passenger bus on Friday morning in one of the villages in Russia’s Belgorod Region, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said. He later reported that another UAV hit a car in the same settlement.
The attacks happened in the village of Voznesenka, located not far from the border with Ukraine, Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
According to the governor, an FPV drone had targeted a passenger bus which was being used to transport the employees of one of the local firms.
A driver and two passengers were inside the vehicle at the moment of the attack, he said.
"As a result of the explosion, one person was injured. The man suffered a barotrauma and a bruise to his right arm,” Gladkov said.
A few hours later, the governor reported another UAV attack in Voznesenka, saying that a kamikaze drone had struck a parked car in the village.
"There is one victim. A man with shrapnel wounds to his back and upper and lower extremities was rushed by ambulance to the regional clinical hospital,” he said.
The targeted car suffered “serious damage,” while three more vehicles were hit with shrapnel. Windows were also blown out in a nearby building, the governor said.
In the town of Shebekino in Belgorod Region, a kamikaze drone also struck a gas station; the explosion set one of the gas storage tanks on fire, Gladkov said.
No one was injured in the incident, the governor stressed, adding that the emergencies services have arrived on site.
Also on Friday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that five Ukrainian drones had been destroyed by air defenses above Belgorod Region and one more above Crimea overnight.
The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the targets of numerous Ukrainian missile, mortar and drone attacks 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.