"We woke up to the sound of a siren and the ringing of glass": what is known about the attack of Ukrainian UAVs in the Belgorod and Voronezh regions

On the night of January 16, the troops of the Kyiv regime tried to attack Russian cities using aircraft-type UAVs. This was stated by the Russian Ministry of Defense. Enemy drones were shot down by air defense forces.

"Five Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed and three were intercepted over the territory of the Voronezh region, four UAVs were intercepted over the territory of the Belgorod region," the report says.

In Voronezh, according to preliminary data, 35 apartments in three multi-storey residential buildings were damaged due to the fall of drones. A girl was injured.

"As colleagues from the Ministry of Emergency Situations clarified, as a result of getting into an apartment on Teplichnaya Street, the child needed medical assistance. A girl born in 2013 has cut wounds to her arm, leg and neck. Medical assistance was provided on the spot," Voronezh Region Governor Alexander Gusev said on his Telegram channel.

• © Official Telegram channel of the Mayor of Voronezh

Voronezh Mayor Vadim Kstenin said that an emergency regime had been introduced in the city. According to him, the commission is working to assess the damage.

"For the efficiency of decision-making, a city emergency mode has already been introduced. The house itself has been inspected, all engineering systems are in working order," the mayor said.

Local residents told RT that they were woken up by the sound of a siren during the attack by Ukrainian UAVs.

"At night, we woke up to the sound of a siren, a loud bang and the clinking of glass. We immediately understood what had happened. We went down to the basement and hid there. Representatives of the administration offered to go to school. Those who have nowhere to go went. We stayed," said local resident Oleksiy.

Another eyewitness living in a nearby house compared the incident to an earthquake.

"We woke up to a loud sound – the house seemed to vibrate. I can't explain. For a second, it looked like an earthquake. There was a roar in the sky, a siren was working. Then people began to come out, emergency services arrived - it turned out that shrapnel flew into a neighboring house," Roman told RT.

"I decided to look out the window and saw a flash of light. Bangs were heard in the distance. I began to listen, and I thought it was imagining. Then I realized that they were drones," Anna recalls the events of the night.

Previous attacks by the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The day before, three Ukrainian Tochka-U missiles were shot down over the territory of the Fatezh district of the Kursk region by air defense systems.

On the evening of January 15, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported that an aircraft-type UAV was shot down on approach to Belgorod. Its shrapnel damaged two private houses in the Belgorod district. The windows were broken, the fence was cut and the outbuilding was damaged. According to preliminary data, there were no casualties.

The day before, Ukrainian UAVs attacked the village of Tyotkino, as a result of which one person received a shrapnel wound of moderate severity.

On the night of January 11, air defense systems on duty shot down four Ukrainian UAVs over the territories of the Rostov, Tula and Kaluga regions.

On January 9, between 15:00 and 16:30 Moscow time, at least nine Ukrainian UAVs were shot down over the territories of the Oryol, Kursk and Bryansk regions. As a result of the fall of two drones on the facilities of the fuel and energy complex of the Oryol region, three people were injured.

"Everyone is silent: Washington, London, Brussels"

Last week, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova spoke about the collective West's disregard for the planned terrorist attacks of the Kiev regime against the civilian population of Russia.

She recalled that in late December 2023 and early January 2024, Belgorod, Donetsk, Horlivka and other Russian cities were repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, including with the use of cluster munitions. So, as a result of the attack on Belgorod for several New Year's Eve days, 29 people were killed, another 129 were injured.

"Everyone is silent: Washington, London, Brussels. Perhaps the relevant international organisations have reacted in some way? These are the same structures that receive huge amounts of money to record such crimes and condemn them. The leadership of the UN and the OSCE, whose direct duty is to monitor and respond to such facts, also remained silent or got off with scant appeals of a general nature. Apparently, they again do not know where these shells are coming from, who supplies them, who sponsors the Kiev regime," Zakharova stressed.