MOSCOW, June 9, 2023 (AFP) – A drone hit a residential building in Russia’s southern city of Voronezh Friday injuring two people, the local governor said.
Drone attacks have hit Russian cities — including the capital Moscow — often in recent months as Kyiv says it is preparing for a major counteroffensive.
Friday’s attack was the first in Voronezh, a city of some one million people that lies in a region deeper inside Russia than Belgorod, which has been heavily shelled in recent weeks.
“A drone fell on Belinsky Street in Voronezh,” the governor of the region, Alexander Gusev, said on Telegram.
He added that at least two people were injured in the attack, some 200 kilometres (124 miles) from the Ukraine border.
Belinsky Street is in the centre of the city, near Voronezh State University.
The Kremlin said security services were working at the site.
“The Kyiv regime continues to attack civilian infrastructure, residential houses,” its spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“We will continue the fight and the special operation,” he added, using Moscow’s term for its offensive in Ukraine that was launched in February 2022.
Russian state media showed images of a building that had some shattered windows and part of its wall was blackened, where the drone had apparently hit.
The announcement that Voronezh had been targeted came as the neighbouring Belgorod region — that has seen thousands evacuated from border areas and an unprecedented incursion from Ukraine — continued to be shelled.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the border district of Shebekino, which has been the most affected by the attacks, had been struck 195 times with “various ammunition” on Thursday.
“In the city of Shebekino, strikes were carried out on residential areas and the industrial zone,” he added.
Gladkov said the border village of Novaya Tavolzhanka was hit by at least 10 rocket attacks.
Authorities have evacuated border towns and villages to the regional hub of Belgorod amid the increased shelling.
Drone attacks have hit Russian cities throughout Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine but have in recent months intensified.
Moscow was hit by an unprecedented drone attack late in May.
