An electric substation in the Russian city of Belgorod, just close to the border, was set on fire by a Ukrainian strike on Friday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov confirmed.
‘An electric substation… caught fire after a strike on Belgorod,’ Gladkov said on Telegram, adding that it would take ‘up to four hours’ to activate a backup system and restore power.
He did not specify how many people had lost power in the city of 330,000, which until now has rarely been hit by Ukrainian fire, unlike the surrounding Belgorod region.
Images posted on social media showed the moment of the impact, with the facility in flames.
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Gladkov also posted photos of the fire, which was brought under control around 1700 GMT.
‘We’re going to try to repair all the damage as soon as possible,’ said Gladkov.
He added the other Ukrainian missiles hit a railway line and damaged several electrical lines, disrupting rail traffic for several hours.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian strike destroyed a munitions depot in the Belgorod region.
The same day a rocket gutted the top floor of an apartment building in the city of Belgorod, but did not cause any injuries.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that earlier in the week, Ukrainian strikes knocked out power in the town of Shebekino and killed a 74-year-old woman, and injured several others in the town.
Last week Russia complained of an increase in artillery and missile strikes on its territory bordering Ukraine.
In another report, Josep Borrell who is the Eurpoean Union foreign policy chief has on coervin for made warned Moscow on Thursday that its forces would be ‘annihilated’ by the West’s military response if President Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
‘Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the Member States, and the United States and NATO are not bluffing neither,’ Borrell said at the opening of a Diplomatic Academy in Brussels.
‘Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.’
Fears that Moscow could use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine have grown after Putin issued veiled threats as he staged the annexation of four occupied regions in the face of loses on the battlefield.