The Russian authorities said on Saturday that a Ukrainian attack on the city of Belgorod had killed at least 18 people and injured more than 110 others, in the deadliest strike against a Russian city since the beginning of the war nearly two years ago.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine had hit Belgorod — a regional center of around 330,000 residents about 25 miles north of the Ukrainian border — with two missiles and several rockets, 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 some debris had fallen on the city. The Ukrainian government has not officially commented on the Belgorod attack, and Russian claims could not be immediately verified.
For those of you who, like me, wanted to know where Belgorod is-
Fuck russia. Also, I take this with a grain of salt, to say the least. I’d not be surprised at all if this was just a russian fuckup. Fucking idiots.
An eye for an eye would see rockets hit Moscow and St Petersburg
At the same time, there is no need to commit war crimes and target civilians. I hope the Ukrainian army is keeping their nose clean here.
It was russian air defence that hit their own city. At least that’s what I heard and that’s also what it looks like.
It’s very unlikely that Ukraine suddenly starts targeting civilians.
Heard from where? I’m inclined to believe Ukraine is in the right here, but citing sources matters, especially when there’s a propaganda war happening.
Can’t find the tweet rn. There were analysis on impact angle, type of explosion and distance from impact side to frontline.
Only way Ukraine would be the origin is if they used himars or drones. But those explosions look completely different.
Another tweet said that Ukraine claimed responsibility for attacking military targets in that area. The russian air defence however has trouble With shooting down those small targets with sensors that were designed to fly towards jet planes or ballistic missiles.
I’m really torn on this. Normally, I’d agree with you 100%, but there’s a couple special factors at play here.
The first being that Ukraine is punching up, and they don’t currently have the firepower to hit the capitol like their capitol has been hit. So that simply isn’t an option afaik.
The second is that as a result of 1, the only realistic way for Ukraine to win the war is to convince Russia to surrender. The quickest way to do that is to convince Russian citizens that they need to overthrow the government. I’m generally against violent/aggressive persuasion(like protests that block streets, preventing people from getting to their job/hospital) because they tend to dissuade people from joining the cause. That being said, force might be the only option Ukraine has for making the Russian civilians to do what needs to be done.
Lastly, Russian media has an iron grip on information control. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for them to intentionally keep their citizens in the dark about military installations so as to use them as living shields. “You can’t shoot our base because it’s under a school” type shit
I agree with you insofar as Ukraine needs to “bring the war home” for Russians. Break the image that Putin keeps the peace inside Russia. I think Ukraine has been doing a good job of that so far with their attacks on Russian soil, without civilian casualties.
Yeah, a large part of my comment is speculation, that’s pretty much the only concrete conclusion.
An attack on a residential area? Sounds more like a Russian false flag attack. Wouldn’t be the first time.
