This would be the first attack by the Ukrainian army on Russian soil since the start of the invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin on February 24. A Russian official accused Ukrainian helicopters on Friday April 1 of having attacked an “oil depot” in the city of Belgorod, located in western Russia about forty kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
- Two depot workers injured
“A fire in an oil depot occurred because of an airstrike by two Ukrainian army helicopters that entered Russian territory at low altitude,” the region’s governor said on his Telegram account. of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov.
In a separate message, he said firefighters were on the job to put out the blaze and two depot workers were injured. The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations says that more than 170 rescuers intervened on the spot. The ministry released a video showing firefighters in silver thermal suits putting out large burning vats. He confirmed the toll of two injured.
The public company Rosneft, owner of the premises, claimed to have evacuated its staff. In addition, the director of a company near Belgorod, Konstantin Lakhnov, declared that his premises had also been hit by helicopter fire. “Helicopters fired at us with rockets (…) The windows are damaged, equipment is destroyed or damaged (…) the roof is damaged,” he told the public agency TASS.
After the attack, local media reported queues of vehicles in front of petrol stations, but Energy Minister Nikolai Shulguinov assured that there would be no shortage of fuel. Videos on social media claimed to have been filmed in Belgorod show a helicopter firing missiles, then an explosion. AFP was unable to independently verify these claims.
- kyiv does not confirm… but does not deny
For its part, in kyiv, the Ukrainian government refused to confirm the strike. “I can neither confirm nor deny that Ukraine was involved, because I do not have all the military information in my hands,” declared the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba.
Ukraine does not have to “take responsibility for all miscalculations, all disasters and all events taking place on Russian territory”, added the spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, Oleksandre Motouzianyk, also refusing to confirm or not.
The Kremlin in any case affirmed this Friday that this incident would not “create the appropriate conditions for the continuation of negotiations” between kyiv and Moscow. The talks also resumed this Friday by videoconference between delegations from the two countries, after a meeting in Istanbul which raised hopes of progress, quickly showered by Moscow.
- Explosions already recorded in the Belgorod region
On Wednesday March 30, explosions had already taken place in an ammunition depot in the Belgorod region, without the Russian authorities clearly explaining the cause of the incident. They had then spoken of a “human error” having caused a fire, specifies The world. The daily recalls that since February 24, isolated rockets have repeatedly landed in Russian territory, without it being possible to identify their origin.
On February 25, local and Ukrainian media had mentioned a strike by kyiv against a Russian air base near Rostov, without it being officially confirmed. The city of Belgorod, capital of the eponymous region, is located about 80 kilometers north of Kharkiv, the second Ukrainian city attacked by Russian forces since the start of the Kremlin offensive.