The first stage of a rocket of the Russian Pantsir air defense missile system hit a high-rise building in Belgorod. This information was confirmed to The Insider by military expert Oleg Zhdanov and CIT investigators.
A photograph of a rocket that hit the house was published on the Zhest Belgorod Telegram channel.
There are also reports of a series of explosions in Kharkov immediately after the explosions in the Belgorod region.
Earlier it became known about at least three dead as a result of nighttime explosions in Belgorod. The Baza edition reports two more dead, the authorities of the region have not yet confirmed the information. According to the governor of the Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov, there are also four victims. He said that 11 apartment buildings and 39 private residential buildings were partially destroyed as a result of the explosions.
At the same time, Gladkov did not specify what exactly happened: according to him, “the air defense system allegedly worked in the city,” but the governor did not say what specifically caused the fires.
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the situation has escalated since March, a yellow level of terrorist threat has been introduced. Explosions and triggered air defense systems are also periodically reported in the Bryansk and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine.
Advisor to the President of Ukraine Mikhail Podolyak commented on his Telegram channel what is happening in the border regions of Russia: “Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk regions are now also beginning to actively explore such a concept as“ demilitarization ”. Disarmament. In these Russian regions, large fuel bases periodically burn, providing fuel for the armored vehicles of the Russian army, and ammunition depots explode. For different reasons. And they do it more and more actively. <...> With such an intensity and volume of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine, it will not be possible to sit out. And therefore, the disarmament of the Belgorod-Voronezh warehouses of murderers is an absolutely natural, natural process. Karma is a cruel thing."
On April 13, responding to all the new reports of explosions in the border areas, the Ministry of Defense announced that it would respond with strikes on the headquarters and government bodies of Ukraine if “sabotage” continued on Russian territory.