The beach was packed, many vacationers lounging near the turquoise waters when the drone slammed into the white sand and burst into a fireball.
Russian officials said seven people, including three children, were killed and 58 others injured by the explosion in the Black Sea resort town of Gelendzhik on Monday. The explosion was captured on video and shared on social media, and verified by NBC News.
Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting civilians, which would constitute a war crime, and unleashed a barrage of aerial strikes on its neighbor. Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia come as its own civilians faced deadly Russian bombardment throughout the summer.
Ukrainian officials did not confirm they were responsible, but they also did not deny it.
“What happened today was a deliberate strike by the Kyiv regime against the civilian population — people who have absolutely no connection to military infrastructure,” Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of the Krasnodar region, said on his official Telegram channel. “There can be no justification for such a cynical and inhumane terrorist act targeting children.”
The explosion comes amid a concerted Ukrainian effort to push the war’s front line closer than ever to Moscow, with strikes targeting shipping vessels, oil sites, warehouses and ammunition depots in recent weeks.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has honed an innovative and lethal strategy of using cheaply manufactured drones as it seeks to pressure Moscow into a peace settlement. Some hit their targets, while others are often shot down.
Between July 24 and July 31, at least 61 people were killed and more than 320 wounded in Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Friday.
After the explosion in Gelendzhik, Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said: “Russian air defense shot down a drone onto people lying on the beach.”
“It was Putin who killed these Russians,” he said in a statement. “Had he not started the war and the strikes on Ukraine, they would be alive.”
Kovalenko also accused Putin of downplaying Ukrainian attacks on Russia, creating an “illusion of peace” that has made the public complacent.
“Had they acknowledged the war on their own territory, people would have reacted more actively to the alert, which in some places in Russia is not even announced,” he said.
A separate attack had also hit a warehouse in Leningrad, its regional governor, Aleksandr Drozdenko, said early Tuesday.
Ukrainian officials have said that Russian missile, drone and bomb attacks killed at least 377 in July alone, the highest monthly figure since April 2022, two months after the invasion.
Two children and an elderly woman were killed in the Sumy region from overnight strikes, the regional administration said early Tuesday. Two people were also killed in Zaporizhzhia, regional chief Ivan Fedorov said Tuesday, the same region where a day earlier he said one person was killed when Russia dropped eight powerful glide bombs.
Shipping vessels have also come under attack in recent weeks, often staffed by crew neither Ukrainian nor Russian.
On Tuesday, Turkey called on the warring countries to enhance navigational safety after a Turkish-owned vessel was hit, injuring some onboard. India made similar calls last month, condemning attacks on ships after its nationals were killed.
