Shelling Kills 14 in Russia’s City of Belgorod Following Moscow’s Aerial Attacks across Ukraine

Ukrainian rescuers work among the rubble of a private building after shelling in Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine, 29 December 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/KATERYNA KLOCHKO
Ukrainian rescuers work among the rubble of a private building after shelling in Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine, 29 December 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/KATERYNA KLOCHKO
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Shelling Kills 14 in Russia’s City of Belgorod Following Moscow’s Aerial Attacks across Ukraine

Ukrainian rescuers work among the rubble of a private building after shelling in Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine, 29 December 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/KATERYNA KLOCHKO
Ukrainian rescuers work among the rubble of a private building after shelling in Zaporizhzhia, southeastern Ukraine, 29 December 2023, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/KATERYNA KLOCHKO

Shelling in the center of the Russian border city of Belgorod killed 14 people, including two children, and injured 108 others Saturday, Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said.

Russian officials accused Kyiv of carrying out the attack, which took place the day after an 18-hour aerial bombardment across Ukraine killed at least 39 civilians.

Images of Belgorod on social media showed burning cars and plumes of black smoke rising among damaged buildings as air raid sirens sounded. One strike hit close to a public ice rink in the very heart of the city.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it identified the ammunition used in the strike as Czech-made Vampire rockets and Olkha cluster munitions. It provided no additional information, and The Associated Press was unable to verify its claims.

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

The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had been briefed on the situation, and that the country’s health minister, Mikhail Murashko, was ordered to join a delegation of medical personnel and rescue workers traveling to Belgorod from Moscow.

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

They also reported that cross-border shelling had killed two other people in Russia. A man died and four other people were injured 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.

Russian drone strikes against Ukraine continued Saturday, with the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reporting that 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, and Mykolaiv regions.

Shelling also killed a 43-year-old man in Stepnohirsk, a town in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Yuriy Malashko said on social media.

On Friday, Moscow’s forces launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones across Ukraine, an onslaught described by one air force official as the biggest aerial barrage of the war.

As well as the 39 deaths, at least 160 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble in the assault, which damaged a maternity hospital, apartment blocks, and schools.

Western officials and analysts recently warned that Russia limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.

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 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) line of contact.

Russia’s ongoing aerial attacks have also sparked concern for Ukraine’s neighbors.

Poland’s defense forces said Friday that an unknown object had entered the country’s airspace before vanishing off radars, and that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.

Speaking to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Russia’s charge d’affaires in Poland, Andrei Ordash, said Saturday that Moscow would not comment on the event until Warsaw had given the Kremlin evidence of an airspace violation.

“We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated,” he said.



NKorea's Kim Again Threatens to Use Nuclear Weapons against SKorea, US

This picture taken on October 7, 2024 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on October 8, 2024 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at Kim Jong Un University of National Defense for its 60th founding anniversary in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on October 7, 2024 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on October 8, 2024 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at Kim Jong Un University of National Defense for its 60th founding anniversary in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
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NKorea's Kim Again Threatens to Use Nuclear Weapons against SKorea, US

This picture taken on October 7, 2024 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on October 8, 2024 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at Kim Jong Un University of National Defense for its 60th founding anniversary in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)
This picture taken on October 7, 2024 and released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) via KNS on October 8, 2024 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering a speech at Kim Jong Un University of National Defense for its 60th founding anniversary in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the United States, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported Tuesday.
Kim has issued similar threats to use nuclear weapons preemptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as outside experts say North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election.
In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong Un University of National Defense, he said that North Korea "will without hesitation use all its attack capabilities against its enemies” if they attempt to use armed forces” against North Korea, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
“The use of nuclear weapons is not ruled out in this case,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Kim said North Korea’s nuclear response posture must be fully enhanced because South Korea and the United States are pushing to beef up their military alliance based on joint nuclear and strategic planning, a move that he said would increase the danger of breaking the balance of power on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea earlier said its rubber-stamp parliament was to meet on Oct. 7. But as of Tuesday, state media hasn't said whether the parliament meeting began as scheduled.
Observers say the parliament meeting was likely meant to constitutionally declare a hostile “two-state” system on the Korean Peninsula to formally reject reconciliation with South Korea and codify new national borders. In January, Kim ordered the rewriting of the constitution to remove the long-running state goal of a peaceful Korean unification and cement South Korea as an “invariable principal enemy.”
All exchange and cooperation programs between the two Koreas remain dormant since a broader US-North Korea diplomacy on the North's nuclear program collapsed in 2019.
Since late May, North Korea has floated thousands of trash-carrying balloons toward South Korea, reviving a Cold War-style psychological campaign. On Tuesday, South Korea's military said.