In Belgorod, during the nighttime explosions, a family from Kharkov, who came to Russia "to wait out the hostilities", died. It is reported by RIA Novosti with reference to a local resident Alexei Ruslanov. “A shell hit near the wing. A family spent the night there – a son, a mother-in-law and a sister came from Kharkov to survive the hostilities. A shot rang out, this outbuilding was torn apart, ”he told the agency.
Information about the dead Ukrainians was also confirmed by the governor of the Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov. He announced four dead: three of them, according to him, were Ukrainians.
The Russian Defense Ministry claims that the strikes were carried out by three Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles, which shot down the air defense forces. Military experts told The Insider that one of the high-rise buildings was likely hit by the main engine of a 9M335 anti-aircraft guided missile of the Russian Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile system covering Belgorod.
According to a Belgorod resident and deputy editor-in-chief of Fonar.tv Nikita Parmenov, many residents of Belgorod are already calling last night “the worst night since the beginning of the special operation”: “Panic has grown, people are worried. Entertainment festivals and events have been canceled in the city today. There is confusion about the "newspeak" that the governor uses. Okay, when you called some explosions in the sky "pops", but when two houses burned down in your house, people died, for some reason the governor again called it "a series of loud sounds." This is the main complaint against the authorities now.”
Later, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, nevertheless called the incident "explosions", according to him, there are also four victims, two of them in the hospital. He also added that 21 apartment buildings and 40 private residences were affected.
The explosions took place on the night of 2 to 3 July.