Attack in Belgorod comes day after devastating strike on Ukrainian port city and amid voting in Russia’s election

Ukrainian war briefing

Nexta is reporting that there have been 11 attempts to set fire to polling stations in Russia, along with 19 cases of ballot boxes being spoiled with greenery and paint.

Russia is proposing eight-year prison sentences for those involved.

The death toll in the Russian attack on civilian infrastructure in Odesa has risen to 21 people after an emergency worker succumbed to injuries at a hospital. The Russian ballistic missile strike on Odesa was Moscow’s deadliest attack in weeks, wounding more than 75.

A man and a woman died in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Belgorod oblast and three other people were wounded. The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday that Russia’s air defence systems destroyed two additional Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the Belgorod oblast in what is the latest in a series of raids reported in recent days.

Ukrainian drones struck two Rosneft oil refineries in Russia’s Samara region, leaving one facility on fire on Saturday, the region’s governor said. The Volga river region’s Syzran refinery was on fire, Dmitry Azarov said on Telegram. His comments also confirmed an attack on the Novokubyshev refinery. Workers at both plants had been evacuated and there were no casualties, Azarov claimed.

Two men were injured in a Russian unmanned aerial attack on the Kharkiv oblast, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Over the past day, about 20 settlements in the Kharkiv oblast were hit by enemy artillery and mortar attacks.

There has been a record growth in the number of Russian men ages 31 to 59 with disabilities, the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing. “The increase in the number of men with disabilities was most likely due to the growth in military invalids,” the UK defence ministry said. “This is almost certainly the case. A significant majority of the over 355,000 casualties that the Russian armed forces have suffered as a result of the conflict in Ukraine have been wounded personnel.”

Voters in Russia headed to the polls across the country’s 11 time zones on Friday in a three-day presidential election that is all but certain to extend Vladimir Putin’s 24-year rule until at least 2030. Putin is running against Communist Nikolai Kharitonov, Leonid Slutsky, leader of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, and Vladislav Davankov of the New People party. Two anti-war candidates, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova were barred from running by the electoral commission.

Voting is also taking place in the four occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia claims to have annexed despite its forces only partially controlling the territory. Ukraine has said the election there is illegal. Speaking at a meeting of Russia’s security council, Putin accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the voting process and people in the border regions with “a number of criminal armed actions”. Putin said the attempts to break into Russia did not succeed. He said the acts would not go unpunished.