At least three civilians have died and several more have been injured on Friday afternoon-evening in the Russian region of Belgorod, following a new wave of drone attacks attributed to Ukrainian forces in the context of the war initiated in February 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Local authorities have explained that, "In the town of Oktyabrski, Belgorod district, an FPV drone attacked a car. Two men died at the scene from their injuries," according to a message published on social media and cited by the Russian agency Interfax.
The same statement indicated that two other people were evacuated to the Municipal Hospital number 2 in the same town with a preliminary diagnosis of "barotrauma and a blind shrapnel wound to the neck," respectively.
Shortly after, the same media reported the death of a third civilian in a new attack attributed to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which also allegedly hit the town of Oktyabrski.
"A man died as a result of the drone detonation," reported the operational headquarters in Makh", the regional operational headquarters added in a brief note.
These attacks occur hours after Moscow announced new military progress on Friday morning within the framework of the invasion of Ukraine, specifically the capture of four towns in the provinces of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.
In recent months, Russia has consolidated advances on the ground in Ukraine, especially on the eastern front. Moscow annexed the partially occupied provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022, and has also managed to advance into Kharkiv, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk, in addition to having incorporated the Crimean peninsula in 2014.