File photo: Smoke rises at a warehouse after shelling in Severodonetsk, eastern Ukraine, on May 3, 2022, as fighting is raging across Ukraine’s east amid a US warning that Moscow is preparing to formally annex eastern regions.
Yasuyoshi CHIBA / AFP

A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit Thursday in shelling by Kyiv’s forces, the city governor said.

“The Ukrainian armed forces shelled Belgorod. There is damage at a residential apartment building on Gubkin street. Information about the victims is being detailed,” the Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement on Telegram.

Gladkov added that shelling by Ukraine’s forces had landed near school grounds in a village called Krasnoye outside the main city of Belgorod, with students participating online from home. No one was reported injured or killed.

Amateur images distributed on social media showed dark smoke drifting from a high-rise building and debris strewn on the ground below.

Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that Ukraine shelling has hit the southern region and pointed to multiple incidents at the beginning of the war as justification for sending troops into Ukraine.

Earlier this week Gladkov said Ukraine shelling on electrical facilities had briefly left some 2,000 people without power.

AFP