Ukrainian shelling kills 22 in Russia as cross-border attacks escalate

Residents of the Russian city of Belgorod were told to hide in shelters Sunday as sirens warned them of a possible missile attack from neighboring Ukraine.

The warnings came after a Russian drone assault on Ukraine on Saturday night, which itself followed a Ukrainian air attack on Belgorod that killed 22 people earlier in the day.

More than 100 people were wounded in Saturday's strike on Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, making it one of the deadliest attacks on Russian soil since Moscow invaded Ukraine 22 months ago.

Russian authorities accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, which took place the day after an 18-hour Russian aerial bombardment across Ukraine killed at least 41 civilians.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said it identified the ammunition used in the strike as Czech-made Vampire rockets and Olkha missiles fitted with cluster-munition warheads. It provided no additional information, and NBC News was unable to verify its claims.

“This crime will not go unpunished,” the ministry said in a statement on social media.

In an emergency meeting at the U.N. Security Council demanded by Russia Saturday night, envoy Vasily Nebenzya accused Kyiv of a “terrorist attack.” In comments carried by Russian state media, Nebenzya claimed Ukraine had launched “a deliberate act of terrorism directed against civilians.”

Earlier Saturday, Moscow officials reported shooting down 32 Ukrainian drones over the country’s Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol, and Kursk regions.

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Russian officials also reported that cross-border shelling had killed two other people in the country. A man died and four other people were wounded when a missile struck a private home in the Belgorod region late Friday evening and a 9-year-old was killed in a separate incident in the Bryansk region.

Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv. Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula. However, larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Sunday that it had shot down 21 of 49 drones launched by Russian forces overnight.

Twenty-eight people were wounded in an attack on the eastern city of Kharkiv, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Sunday. A central hotel, apartment buildings, kindergarten, shops and administrative buildings sustained damage, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.

In the Kyiv region that surrounds the capital, a Russian drone attack caused a fire to break out at a critical infrastructure facility, local officials said. They did not identify the facility further.

Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 620-mile line of contact.