Ukrainian shelling kills 7 in Russian apartment block collapse, Russia says

MOSCOW (Reuters) -At least seven people were killed and 15 injured when a whole section of a multi-storey apartment block collapsed after a Ukrainian missile strike in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine, Russian officials said.

Footage from the scene posted by Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the region, showed at least 10 storeys of the building collapsing.

“The city of Belgorod and the Belgorod region were subjected to massive shelling by the armed forces of Ukraine,” Gladkov said.

“As the result of a direct hit by a shell into an apartment building, the entire entrance from the tenth to the first floor collapsed.”

Russia’s Mash Telegram news channel said that at least seven people were killed and 15 injured. It was not immediately clear what weapons were used in the attack – or if they were supplied by the West.

A witness at the scene said that there were many ambulances and fire engines at the site.

“A whole section of a 10-storey building collapsed,” the witness told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “I see several victims. Firefighters are sorting through the rubble.”

The Russian defence ministry said on Sunday that its air defence forces had destroyed two Soviet-era conventional ballistic missiles launched overnight by Ukrainian forces over the Belgorod region.

Both Ukraine and Russia say they do not target civilians, although many civilians have been killed by both sides in the war. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine began in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution and Russia annexed Crimea, with Russian-backed separatist forces fighting Ukraine’s armed forces.

About 14,000 people were killed there between 2014 and the end of 2021, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), including 3,106 civilians.

Russian forces earlier this month opened a new front in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, which neighbours Russia’s Belgorod region which has come under repeated attack from Ukraine by drones, artillery and Ukrainian proxies.

President Vladimir Putin suggested in March that Moscow could try to establish a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory due to the attacks on Belgorod.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.

(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)