The impact of a Ukrainian drone on a beach in southern Russia has left six dead this Monday, three of them children, and about fifty injured. The air raid alarms did not go off, so the attack caught hundreds of families by surprise by the sea in the middle of summer, according to Russian media reports. It is currently unknown whether the device fell after being intercepted by Russian air defenses.
The tragedy took place on Arjipki beach, in the Guelendzhik district (Krasnodar region), where vacationers were taking advantage of the good weather to sunbathe and swim in the waters of the Black Sea.
In the images released, it can be seen how, after being shot down by air defenses, the unmanned device crashes onto a beach where hundreds of vacationers were resting in the town of Arjipo-Osipovka, in the Guelendzhik district.
“Unfortunately, the number of dead in the town of Arjipo-Osipovka has risen to six people, three of them children,” said the governor of Krasnodar, Veniamin Kondrátiev, via the Telegram messaging app.
Another 47 people were injured, according to preliminary data, of whom 17 have had to be admitted to hospitals in the area.
In the images published by Telegram channels, it can be seen how the unmanned device begins to dive and crashes onto the beach, causing an explosion and a shockwave in the sand, where dozens of people were resting.
The explosion was recorded on the phones of alarmed bathers who were on the other side of the beach, where dozens of people urgently decided to leave the water and seek shelter in anticipation of new attacks. “It was an attack against civilian infrastructure. Emergency services are working at the site,” Kondrátiev stated.
Earlier, the leader of the annexed Crimean peninsula, Sergey Aksyonov, had already reported the death of four other civilians in a Ukrainian night attack.
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Russia accuses Ukraine of terrorism
The spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, denounced in statements to the local news agency TASS that “in the center of Europe operates a terrorist gang that has occupied the state apparatus of Ukraine.”
“The sponsors of terrorism are NATO countries. Not long ago, NATO and the European Union declared zero tolerance for terrorism. Now, they themselves are part of international terrorism actions,” she said.
According to some media, the target of the Ukrainian attack was actually a rest hotel for specialists and engineers of a Russian military industry company.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said this Monday in a meeting with ambassadors in Kiev that his goal is to make Russia stop fighting before the arrival of the harsh winter.
The chosen method, drone attacks against the Russian rear, seeks to leave Moscow no alternative but peace due to the high cost of the war, he said, according to local media.
In this regard, he denounced that, to date, Russian President Vladimir Putin intends to prolong what he prefers to call a “special military operation,” for which he proposes to decree a second mobilization after the legislative elections in September.
