Russia says Ukrainian drone attack kills 7 at Black Sea resort beach

Russia said on Monday that seven people, including three children, had been killed and 40 injured at its Black Sea holiday resort of Gelendzhik in what it said was a deliberate Ukrainian drone attack on civilians.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which like Russia, ‌says it does not deliberately target civilians in the full-scale war which Moscow launched in 2022.

Social media videos, verified by Reuters, showed what appears to be a drone slamming into a busy beach area near the town of Gelendzhik, accompanied by a loud explosion.

Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region where Gelendzhik is located, called what had happened a tragedy.

“What happened today was a deliberate attack ⁠by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population, which has no connection whatsoever to military infrastructure,” Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor ‌of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region which includes the resort, said in a statement on Telegram.

In a separate earlier statement, Kondratyev had spoken of falling drone fragments, a phrase ‌that usually suggests that Russian air defences have brought down a Ukrainian drone. It was not clear ⁠in this case ⁠if Russia had used electronic jamming or other air defence methods to try to change the course of the drone before it slammed ‌into the beach.