A Ukrainian missile attack killed two people in western Russia and a separate drone strike set an oil refinery ablaze on Saturday, the second day of an election that President Vladimir Putin has accused Kyiv of trying to disrupt.
The Ukraine war has cast a shadow over voting in the three-day presidential election, which is all but certain to hand Putin six more years in the Kremlin.
In the Belgorod region where cross-border attacks from Ukraine have become part of daily life, the governor reported the deaths of a man and a woman. Video obtained by Reuters showed fires ablaze and air raid sirens sounding on the empty streets of Belgorod city.
Dmitry Azarov, governor of the Samara region 850 km (530 miles) southeast of Moscow, said the Syzran refinery was on fire but an attack on a second refinery had been thwarted.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had repelled attempts by Ukrainian forces to cross the border into the Belgorod region. Governor Gladkov said that, given “the current situation”, schools in much of the region would close on Monday and Tuesday, and that shopping centres in Belgorod city would be shut on Sunday and Monday.
Ukraine has staged repeated strikes this week on Russian soil, particularly against oil refineries. Russia mounted its deadliest attack in weeks on Friday when its missiles hit a residential area in Ukraine’s Black Sea port city of Odesa, killing at least 20 people and wounding more than 70.
Putin’s hold on power is not under threat. Aged 71 and in office as president or prime minister since the last day of 1999, he dominates Russia’s political landscape and none of the other three candidates on the ballot paper presents any credible challenge.
His leading critics are in prison or have fled abroad, prompting the opposition to call the vote a sham.
Russia’s best known opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, died in an Arctic penal colony last month and his supporters have accused Putin of having him killed. The Kremlin denied that, and his death certificate said he died of natural causes.—Agencies
