Gunmen kill 11 at Russian base, fresh blow to Kyiv operations

Kyiv, October 16

Russia has opened a criminal investigation after gunmen shot dead 11 persons at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border, authorities said on Sunday, as fighting raged in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russia’s RIA news agency, citing the defence ministry, said two gunmen opened fire during a firearms training exercise on Saturday, targeting a group that had volunteered to fight in Ukraine. The “terrorists” themselves were shot dead, it said.

The incident is the latest blow to President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine and comes a week after a blast damaged a bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the attackers were from a former Soviet republic, without elaborating. A senior Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Arestovych, said the two men were from the mainly Muslim, Central Asian republic of Tajikistan and had opened fire on the others after an argument over religion.

“As a result of the incident at a shooting range in Belgorod region, 11 persons died from gunshot wounds and another 15 were injured,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said, announcing the criminal investigation. It gave no other details.

Some Russian independent media outlets reported that the number of casualties was higher than the official figures.

The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said no local residents were among those killed or wounded. Two witnesses said they had seen Russian air defence systems repelling air strikes in Belgorod. Gladkov said two persons had been wounded after the shelling, according to preliminary reports.

Putin said on Friday Russia should be finished calling up reservists in two weeks, promising an end to a divisive mobilisation that has seen hundreds of thousands of men summoned to fight in Ukraine and many fleeing the country.

Meanwhile, Russian forces targeted more than 30 towns and villages across Ukraine over 24 hours, launching five missile and 23 air strikes and up to 60 rocket attacks, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Sunday.

Shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged the administration building in the city Donetsk, capital of the Donetsk region, the head of its Russian-backed administration said on Sunday. — Reuters

Ukrainian advances repelled: Kremlin

• Russia’s defence ministry says its forces have repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv, inflicting what it described as significant losses against the enemy.
• The battlefield reports could not immediately be verified. Russia also said it was continuing air strikes on military and energy targets in Ukraine, using long-range precision-guided weapons.