Fire at Russian military site near Ukraine injures one

(Reuters) -One person was injured in a fire on a Russian defence ministry facility in the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, Belgorod region governor said on Sunday.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a local resident suffered minor injuries and his life was not in danger. He also said that seven homes had been damaged as a result of the incident. There were no comments from the defence ministry and it was not immediately clear what caused the fire. Reuters was unable to independently verify the statements.

Images posted to social media showed a large funnel of smoke rising above the ground. Reuters could not verify the reports. Separately, the governor of the Kursk region which also shares a border with Ukraine said that a railway bridge had been damaged on a line used by freight trains. Speaking in a video posted on his Telegram channel, governor Roman Starovoit called the incident an act of sabotage.

Russia last month accused Ukraine of a helicopter attack on a fuel depot in Belgorod, for which Kyiv denied responsibility, as well as shelling villages and firing missiles at an ammunition depot. Other Russian regions that share a border with Ukraine have also reported cross-border shelling incidents since Moscow sent thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a “special military operation”.