Russia said Friday that Ukraine bombed a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod, but Ukrainian officials are denying the claim.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said two Ukrainian helicopters flying at low altitude attacked the facility, which is about 22 miles from the border with Ukraine. Video has surfaced online of what appears to be helicopters attacking the depot, and other videos show firefighters putting out the blaze.
Oleksiy Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s Security Council, said Kyiv was not responsible for the attack. “For some reason they say that we did it, but according to our information this does not correspond to reality,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he couldn’t confirm or deny the Russian claim. “I can neither confirm nor reject the claim that Ukraine was involved in this simply because I do not possess all the military information,” he said.
Russian authorities said that six of the 24 fuel tanks at the facilities caught fire and said the blaze had been extinguished. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was taking steps to ensure that the fire didn’t disrupt energy supplies in Belgorod.
The alleged attack came on the same day that Russia and Ukraine resumed negotiations via video link. On Tuesday, officials met in person in Istanbul, and Ukraine put forward a draft peace deal that the Russian side said it would review and respond to.
Republished from Antiwar.com with permission
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