Russia’s Belgorod region scrambles to restore power after Ukrainian missile attack, governor says

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s Belgorod region is working to restore power and hot water after Ukrainian missile strikes caused significant outages and injured at least three civilians, the area’s governor said on Monday.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukraine had targeted the region’s infrastructure, forcing certain facilities to switch to backup power generators and had twice struck the regional capital – Belgorod – with six warheads in total.

Unverified social media footage showed what looked like a powerful missile attack on a power station in Belgorod with a series of loud explosions followed by smoke rising into the sky.

Reuters could not verify the footage and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine whose own power infrastructure comes under regular attack from Russia.

Gladkov said Kyiv’s forces had shelled other parts of the region, which borders Ukraine, and had launched at least 76 attack drones in the last 24 hours, some of which had been shot down near residential areas.

The Russian Defence Ministry said it had shot down 21 Ukrainian drones over Belgorod overnight.

Gladkov, who posted footage of Belgorod’s philharmonic orchestra playing by torchlight during one of the missile attacks, said emergency repair crews had worked through the night to restore power.

(Reporting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Guy Faulconbridge)