On May 23, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed that drones were shot down by air defenses over Belgorod city and elsewhere in the oblast.
According to preliminary data, there are no casualties, Gladkov added.
Russian Telegram channels also reported attacks by drones against an FSB building and possibly an Interior Ministry building in Belgorod.
The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify these claims.
Earlier today, the same governor reported that two civilians – a man and a woman – were injured in the settlements allegedly attacked by Russian partisans.
The woman suffered shrapnel wounds and is in severe traumatic shock, Gladkov wrote. Both civilians were hospitalized. The only fatality so far has been a woman born in 1941 who died during the evacuation, he said. No civilians died as a result of the fighting, Gladkov claims.
Belgorod’s governor appealed to the residents of the Grayvoron district, where the heaviest clashes between security and partisan troops supposedly take place, not to return to their homes until it is safe.
Asami Terajima
On May 22, a group of armed men calling themselves the Free Russia Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps recorded a video saying they had crossed into Russia and taken hold of bordering villages.
Gladkov announced a "counter-terrorist operation" in the region on May 22 amid reported attacks by Russian anti-government groups.
The Russian state media wrote that the “majority” of residents of the affected villages in Belgorod Oblast fled their homes in response.
None of these claims could be independently verified.
(Updated: )
