Ukraine recently received cluster munitions from the United States. According to Russian information, they are said to have fired at a village in the Belgorod border region. According to the local governor, there were no dead or injured.
Russia accuses Ukraine of attacking its territory with cluster munitions. The governor of the Belgorod border region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported on Telegram that the village of Zhuravlyovka had been attacked with 21 artillery shells and three cluster munitions. Ukrainian forces also used a rocket launcher.
There are no victims. Overall, Gladkow reported attacks on 13 towns in his region. Cluster munitions were only used in Zhuravlevka. In three of the attacked settlements there was damage to houses and vehicles as well as to a power line.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Russia has been using cluster munitions for some time
Ukraine initially did not comment on this. It recently received cluster munitions from the US, but has pledged to use them only against the invading Russian forces. The government in Kiev argues that it urgently needs such weapons against Russian attacks and to liberate occupied territories.
Cluster munitions are missiles or bombs that burst in mid-air over the target, dispersing many small explosive devices. It is internationally banned, particularly because of the danger it poses to civilians, and more than 100 countries have signed an agreement on it. Russia, the USA and Ukraine are not among them.
International organizations such as Human Rights Watch have demonstrated that Russia has long used cluster munitions in its war of aggression against its neighbor. For example, residential areas in the city of Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine were affected.
Shaded: territories occupied by Russia
Drone attack on ammunition dump
According to Russian information, drone attacks by Ukraine on the occupied Crimean peninsula also took place. There, an ammunition store is said to have caught fire and exploded. According to the first findings, there were no dead or injured, said Moscow’s governor Sergei Aksjonov on Telegram. For safety reasons, according to this information, the adjacent villages were evacuated and rail traffic stopped.
The attack took place in the Krasnogvardejsk district north of Simferopol in the central part of Crimea. Videos documenting a major fire are circulating on social networks. Detonations can also be heard on some videos. The Ukrainian military confirmed the attack. Ammunition depots and a fuel depot were destroyed.
Increased attacks on occupied Crimea
The 19-kilometer bridge from the Russian mainland to Crimea was damaged by an attack earlier this week. Two people died as a result. Two days later, a large ammunition depot caught fire in the south-eastern part of the peninsula. The Russian authorities spoke of a Ukrainian missile attack. Here, too, villages had to be evacuated. The ammunition detonated for several days.
Most of the supplies for the Russian occupying forces in southern Ukraine pass through the Crimea. The Ukrainian armed forces are therefore increasingly attacking fuel and ammunition depots. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the Crimean Bridge as a “hostile installation” and a military target because military goods are also delivered via it.