Russia requests UN Security Council meeting after air strikes on Belgorod

Shafaq News/ Russia has requested a meeting of the United Nations Security Council after air strikes on Saturday on the city of Belgorod, close to the border with Ukraine, the state-run RIA news agency cited foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying.

Russian authorities said Saturday that a Ukrainian attack on the city of Belgorod, near the border with Ukraine, had killed at least 14 people and injured more than 100 others, in what appeared to be the deadliest single attack on Russian soil since the beginning of the war.

“The terrorist attack in Belgorod will be the subject of proceedings in the UN Security Council – Russia has requested a meeting of the security council,” Zakharova was quoted as saying.

Russia’s defence ministry said in a statement that Ukraine had hit Belgorod with two missiles and several rockets filled with cluster munitions, adding that the strike was “indiscriminate” and would “not go unpunished.”

The ministry said that most of the rockets had been shot down but that parts of the debris had fallen on the city. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately comment on the attack, and Russian claims could not be immediately verified.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, said that a residential area of the city had been hit, and he urged all residents to move to air raid shelters.

Unverified footage of the aftermath of the bombardment published by residents of Belgorod and broadcast by Russian state television showed cars on fire in the streets and huge plumes of smoke rising from buildings in the city.

Saturday’s attack might be in response to Russia’s air assault against Ukraine on Friday, one of the biggest of the war, which killed at least 39 people, wounded about 160 others and hit civilian and military infrastructure. Several Ukrainian news outlets quoted unnamed Ukrainian security and military officials as taking responsibility for the attack on Belgorod, portraying it as a response to the Russian barrage.

Ukraine has said several times that it does not fear taking the war to Russian territory, and has previously targeted the Belgorod region with cross-border strikes and even brief ground assaults by Kyiv-backed, anti-Kremlin Russian fighters.

So far, such attacks have resulted in at least 50 deaths inside Russia, according to the UN, as well as the evacuation of a few thousand civilians and minor clashes with the Russian military.