Russia said yesterday that seven people, including three children, had been killed and 40 injured at its Black Sea holiday resort of Gelendzhik in what it said was a deliberate Ukrainian drone attack on civilians.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which like Russia, says it does not deliberately target civilians in the full-scale war which Moscow launched in 2022.
Social media videos, verified by Reuters, showed what appears to be a drone slamming into a busy beach area near the town of Gelendzhik, accompanied by a loud explosion.
Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region where Gelendzhik is located, called what had happened a tragedy.
“What happened today was a deliberate attack by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population, which has no connection whatsoever to military infrastructure,” Kondratyev said in a statement on Telegram.
A specialist team had been dispatched to the scene of the explosion at the holiday village of Arkhipo-Osipovka, part of the wider Gelendzhik resort area.
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