Ukraine updates: Belgorod says new attack amid Russia vote

Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday accused Ukraine of engaging in terror attacks to drum up Western support for more arms.

In a statement published on X, formerly Twitter, the ministry claimed, "It is obvious that the corrupt regime in Kyiv has intensified its terrorist activities in connection with the ongoing presidential elections in Russia in order to demonstrate its activity to its Western handlers and to beg for even more financial assistance and lethal weapons."  

Ukraine has reportedly intensified attacks over the past several days on Russia, targeting the border city of Belgorod and several Russian oil refineries.

Militant groups as well as anti-Putin Russians fighting alongside them have also increased ground operations around the Russian border. 

President Vladimir Putin has lashed out at Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of trying to "disrupt" a rigged vote that will see him elected to another 6-year term. 
 

It's been two years since the bombing of the Mariupol theater, where as many as 600 people died  after Russia bombed it.

"The world must remember everything Russia has done to Ukraine and Ukrainians, and each Russian murderer must be held accountable for their actions," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"We will ensure their accountability," he added. 

The city, which now under Russian control, has suffered some of the worst physical destruction of any other place in Ukraine in the early months of the Russian invasion. 

Also, on Saturday, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, headquartered in Berlin, said its analysis showed the attack was most likely a war crime.

"Everything points to the fact that Russian air forces deliberately bombed the theater as a civilian object and the civilians who sought refuge there."

A drone attack, which authorities said was carried out by Ukraine, caused a fire at a Russian oil refinery, which burned for several hours on Saturday before being brought under control.

According to Russian news agency Interfax, Russia's emergency ministry said the "open burning" at the Syzran refinery in the Samara region southeast of Moscow had been stopped, but the blaze was not fully extinguished.

A drone attack on another nearby refinery, Novokuibyshevsky was thwarted, the local governor said. 

A Ukrainian source told the Reuters news agency that Kyiv's SBU intelligence agency had struck the two Rosneft refineries and another named Kuibyshevsky. 

Russian media have not reported a strike on the Kuibyshevsky refinery, which is located in the city of Samara.

A Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Belgorod killed two people in the latest in a series of cross-border attacks,  Russian authorities said on Saturday.

"A man was driving a lorry when a shell hit him, after which the vehicle crashed into a passenger bus. The people on it were not injured," the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

"Another woman was killed in a parking lot where she and her son came to feed the dogs. Medics are fighting for her son's life," he added.

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said it had thwarted attempts by "Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups" to enter the country from Ukraine's Sumy region.

It followed an armed incursion claimed by Ukraine-based Russian opponents of the Kremlin on Tuesday in the Belgorod and Kursk regions.

lo/wd (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)