The incident occurred when the governor of Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov was at the site
A civilian was killed on Sunday in the Russia-Ukraine border town of Shebekino, Belgorod Region, when a residential building came under repeated drone strikes by the Ukrainian military.
The attack occurred when the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, was inspecting repair works continuing at multiple locations across the town, as well as in the city of Belgorod itself, including a residential building damaged in a drone strike earlier this week.
“As we approached the first location, I saw a drone above my head. My first impression is that it belongs to construction workers, given that they did not pay any attention to it. I show it to them, and at that very moment the drone crashes at the fourth floor [of the building],” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
The governor rushed to the damaged apartment to check up on its resident, who was not harmed by the attack. The flat itself, however, sustained considerable damage.
Gladkov left the scene to inspect another location only to return shortly after upon receiving news the same building was hit by another drone. The UAV apparently hit at the same spot, causing partial collapse of the building’s roof. The debris buried the father of the resident of the destroyed apartment, who showed up to check on his son after the first attack.
The governor and his detail attempted to dig the civilian out from the debris, footage shared by Gladkov shows. They weren’t able to do this without the intervention of emergency services, which recovered the body of the man, who had been killed in the collapse. During the rescue operation, another Ukrainian drone was spotted in the area, with law enforcement opening fire on it, Gladkov noted.
Belgorod, as well as other Russian regions bordering Ukraine, have been subjected to indiscriminate drone, missile and artillery attacks on an almost daily basis during the conflict. The enduring strikes have killed dozens of civilians, and has inflicted considerable damage on residential areas and critical infrastructure across numerous locations near the border.
