Shelling kills six in Russia’s Belgorod region as strike on Ukrainian hotel injures three Reuters journalists

Six people were killed in Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region overnight as Ukrainian forces launched drone strikes and shelled multiple towns and villages near the Ukrainian border, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram on Sunday.

Describing what he called a “difficult night for the whole region”, Gladkov wrote that the entire Rakityansky district had been shelled overnight, and that five people had been killed in the town of Rakitnoye.

Gladkov added that 12 people had also been injured, nine of whom had been hospitalised, including a 16-year-old girl who Gladkov said had undergone surgery in a regional children’s hospital but remained in intensive care.

Later on Sunday morning, Gladkov also said that two Belgorod region villages had been targeted in Ukrainian drone strikes, and that one civilian had been killed in the village of Solovyovka.

A Russian missile strike on a hotel in the Ukrainian-controlled Donetsk region city of Kramatorsk has injured at least three Reuters journalists, Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service reported on Sunday.

The two-storey Hotel Sapphire, where a six-person Reuters crew was staying, was partially destroyed in a Russian Iskander missile strike, and one journalist is believed to be trapped under the rubble, Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service reported, adding that efforts to reach the trapped reporter had to be interrupted several times during the night due to renewed Russian shelling of the city.

"One of our colleagues is unaccounted for, while another two have been taken to hospital for treatment," the agency said, adding that the team’s three other members had been accounted for. “We are urgently seeking more information, working with the authorities in Kramatorsk, and supporting our colleagues and their families. We will give an update when we have more information," Reuters said in a statement.

Three civilians were also killed and six more were wounded in Russian shelling of the city of Kherson in Ukraine’s Kherson region overnight, Ukraine’s National Police announced on Sunday, adding that a one-year-old boy and two senior citizens had been among those injured.