Kyiv, Ukraine –
Russia has opened a criminal investigation after gunmen shot dead 11 people at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border, authorities said on Sunday, as fighting raged in eastern and southern Russia. ‘Ukraine.
Russian news agency RIA, citing the Defense Ministry, said two gunmen opened fire during a firearms training exercise on Saturday, targeting a group that had volunteered to fight in Ukraine. The “terrorists” themselves were shot, he added.
The incident is the latest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine and comes a week after an explosion damaged a bridge linking mainland Russia with Crimea, the peninsula it annexed to Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the attackers came from a former Soviet republic, without giving further details. A senior Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Arestovych, said the pair were from the predominantly Muslim Central Asian republic of Tajikistan and opened fire on the others after a dispute over religion.
Reuters was unable to immediately confirm comments by Arestovitch, a prominent war commentator, or independently verify casualty figures and other details.
“As a result of the incident at a shooting range in the Belgorod region, 11 people died from gunshot wounds and 15 others were injured,” the Russian investigative commission said, announcing the criminal investigation . He gave no further details.
Some Russian independent media reported that the number of victims was higher than official figures.
Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said no local residents were among those killed or injured.
Two witnesses later told Reuters they saw Russian air defense systems repelling airstrikes in Belgorod. Gladkov said two people were injured after the shelling, according to preliminary information.
Putin said Friday that Russia should be done calling up reservists in two weeks, promising an end to a divisive mobilization that has seen hundreds of thousands of men called up to fight in Ukraine and many fleeing the country.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a strong ally of Putin, said last week that his troops would deploy with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing what he said were threats from Ukraine and the West. .
The Belarusian Defense Ministry in Minsk said on Sunday that just under 9,000 Russian troops would be stationed in Belarus as part of a “regional grouping” of forces to protect its borders.
ATTACKS
In the 24 hours to Sunday morning, Russian forces targeted more than 30 towns and villages across Ukraine, launching five missiles, 23 airstrikes and up to 60 rocket attacks, the General Staff said on Sunday. General of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
In response, the Ukrainian Air Force carried out 32 strikes, hitting 24 Russian targets.
Fighting was particularly intense over the weekend in the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, and in the strategically important province of Kherson to the south, three of the four provinces Putin proclaimed part of Russia last month.
Shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged the administrative building in the city of Donetsk, capital of the Donetsk region, the head of its Russian-backed administration said on Sunday.
“It was a direct hit, the building is badly damaged. It’s a miracle no one was killed,” said Alexei Kulemzin, inspecting the wreckage, adding that all city services were still working.
There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the attack on the city of Donetsk, which was annexed by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 along with swaths of the eastern Donbass region.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, inflicting what it described as heavy casualties.
Russia also said it was continuing its airstrikes on military and energy targets in Ukraine, using long-range precision-guided weapons.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports.
In the town of Mykolaiv, residents lined up on Sunday – as they do every day – to fill water bottles at a distribution point after supplies were cut off by fighting at the start of the war.
“It’s not war, it’s a war crime. War is when soldiers fight each other, but when civilians are fought, it’s a war crime,” said Vadym Antonyuk, a 51-year-old sales manager, as he stood up. on line.
“EVEN THE SEA IS ON OUR SIDE”
The spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said Russian forces were suffering from severe shortages of equipment, including ammunition, following damage inflicted last weekend on the Crimean Bridge.
“Almost 75% (of Russian military supplies in southern Ukraine) crossed this bridge,” Natalia Humeniuk told Ukrainian television, adding that high winds had also stopped ferries in the area.
“Now even the sea is on our side,” she said.
Putin blamed Ukrainian security services for the bridge explosion and last Monday, in retaliation, ordered the largest air offensive against Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, since the Russian invasion began on February 24. .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces still held the eastern strategic town of Bakhmut despite repeated Russian attacks while the situation in the greater Donbass region remained very difficult.
Russian forces have repeatedly attempted to seize Bakhmut, which is on a main road leading to the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Both are located in the Donetsk region.
Although Ukrainian troops recaptured thousands of square kilometers (miles) of land in recent offensives in the east and south, officials say progress is expected to slow once Kyiv forces encounter more determined resistance.
Zelenskiy said nearly 65,000 Russians had been killed so far since the Feb. 24 invasion, a figure well above Moscow’s official Sept. 21 estimate of 5,937 dead. In August, the Pentagon said Russia had suffered between 70,000 and 80,000 casualties, killed or injured.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said on Telegram on Sunday that Ukraine would prevail in the war because of the continued military aid it receives from the West and the cumulative impact of Western sanctions. on the Russian economy.
“Ukraine’s offensive is strategic and Russia’s defeat is inevitable,” Yermak said.