Three killed in Russia as debris from downed Ukrainian drone destroys homes

Three people were killed, including a young child, and two injured when debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone fell on homes in Russia’s Belgorod region, a local official says.

Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said early on Thursday that Russian air defences shot down an “aircraft-type” unmanned aerial vehicle as it approached Belgorod city, and the falling debris had destroyed several homes.

“To great sorrow, there are dead. Operational services recovered the bodies of two people from the rubble – a man and a woman,” Gladkov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The governor later updated the death toll to three following the discovery of a child’s body beneath the rubble of a house.

“Three people were killed, one of them a small child,” he wrote, accompanied by pictures of a house reduced to a pile of masonry behind red and white police tape.

“A difficult morning for all of us,” he said, offering his condolences to the loved ones of those killed.

“We are all grieving.”

Rescuers recovered the bodies of two people from under the rubble of a house in Belgorod after an attack by a Ukrainian drone, the region’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said:https://t.co/vxD8dILHSg pic.twitter.com/pBQVwyyJuN

— TASS (@tassagency_en) October 11, 2023

Two other people, a man and a woman, were also injured in the incident and had been brought to hospital.

The man was in a coma and had suffered burns to his respiratory tract and upper and lower body, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS. The injured woman had a concussion and a fractured leg, TASS reported, adding that doctors had assessed the woman’s condition as “serious”.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said earlier on Thursday that an attempted Ukrainian drone attack in the Belgorod region had been “thwarted” at about 11:30pm local time (20:30 GMT) on Wednesday. The ministry made no mention of casualties.

Russia has come under regular attack by Ukrainian drones in recent months, mainly in border regions but also in the capital, Moscow.

According to the regional governor, Ukrainian shelling killed two civilians in the Belgorod region on Tuesday.