Moment Ukrainian drone kills sunbathers on Russian beach near Putin’s £1billion palace as Kyiv unleashes its most intense bombardment of the war

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

Ukraine launched what is believed to have been its biggest bombardment of Russia yet, as the Kremlin’s forces shot down at least 1,165 drones, bombs and missiles overnight, striking oil refineries, warehouses and a drone factory. 

Social media videos 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. He said 17 people were being rushed to hospital.

‘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. 

A specialist medical disaster team had been dispatched to the scene of the explosion at the holiday village of Arkhipo-Osipovka, part of the wider Gelendzhik resort area. 

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

The town sits just a few miles from Putin’s Gelenzhik palace bolthole. 

Footage from the beach showed the drone careening down, before detonating in what appeared to be a dense crowd of people. It was unclear whether the drone had been shot down by Russian air defences. 

Screams were heard just before the drone landed, and those in the water quickly made their way out for fear of being hurt next. 

It is not known what the drone’s target was, but air defence machine gunners were heard apparently seeking to defend the resort from drones as the Ukrainian UAV came in. 

One witness told local media: ‘We were on the beach at the time. I’m in complete shock. 

‘We were on the beach, didn’t have time to leave, hid behind a ledge, covered ourselves with sun loungers, and didn’t see where it exploded.’

Another said: ‘While we were parking, we saw crowds of people leaving the beach, cars driving away.

‘A friend called me and said we had to turn around and leave because a drone had crashed. We saw a man with a bloody shoulder.’

A local resident, meanwhile, said: ‘We were already home when we heard a barrage of gunfire, like a machine gun, and an explosion. Everything shook.’ 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of resorting to terrorism.

Russia last month accused Kyiv’s forces of killing 11 people, including four children, in an attack on a holiday camp in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s ‌Zaporizhzhia region.

Russia itself has repeatedly struck targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, displacing millions and laying waste to swathes of Ukraine. Thousands of civilians have so far died in the war, most of ​them Ukrainians killed in Russian attacks.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range attacks deep into Russia in recent months, mainly targeting oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses, in what it says is a campaign to make Russians feel the cost of the war.

In Belgorod, just 20 miles from Russia’s border with Ukraine, a drone factory was targeted by drones. 

Footage shared online showed the factory being blown up. A woman was heard saying: ‘Everything’s on fire there, everything. It’s a disaster, that’s where they make drones and teach you how to fly them. It’s ****ed, it’s all blown up.’  

The beach explosion came as Ukraine launched possibly its most intense bombardment of the war.

Two major oil refineries were blown up, as well as a major warehouse owned by Wildberries – Russia’s equivalent of Amazon – while the Engels-2 military airbase which is home to strategic bombers was also hit. 

Ukrainian forces also targeted fuel trucks heading to Russia-controlled Crimea. 

‘A fire broke out at one of the company’s logistics sites in the Vladimir region following an attack,’ Wildberries said in a statement, adding that warehouse staff had been evacuated.

Regional governor Alexander Avdeyev said the attack on the warehouse was carried out by drones.

‘There is damage and a fire,’ he posted on the Russian messaging app Max, adding that ‘a young man was injured’.

Since mid-July, Ukraine has struck around 20 sites belonging to Wildberries across various parts of Russia and in annexed Crimea.

The initial attacks on the night of July 17-18 left eight people dead and nearly 90 wounded at sites in the Moscow and Tambov regions.

Since then, Ukrainian drone strikes have targeted sites near Saint Petersburg, in Simferopol in Crimea, in Krasnodar and Volgograd, and in Samara.

Wildberries is a highly popular online retail platform in Russia. The attacks on its warehouses are part of a campaign of long-range Ukrainian strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia, which has been waging a large-scale offensive in Ukraine since February 2022.

Kyiv says the aim is to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.

Russia said this morning that it was stepping up protection of ships in the Azov-Black Sea basin while also developing alternative cargo routes, in a move that follows a sharp escalation of attacks at sea by both sides in the war in Ukraine.

The Russian transport ministry said that in response to ‘the tense situation in the Sea of Azov stemming from hostile drone attacks on maritime vessels’, it had set up a task force to find new routes and switch cargo flows to other modes of transport.

‘A number of stevedoring companies have already expressed their readiness to handle additional cargo volumes and accelerate shipment rates at their terminals, within the limits of their operational capabilities,’ it said in a statement.

Together with the defence ministry, ‘additional measures are being implemented to ensure navigational safety and to protect maritime vessels in the Azov-Black Sea basin’.

Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine, also a major agricultural exporter, have been attacking each other’s agricultural export facilities and commercial vessels in the Black Sea area in recent weeks, driving wheat prices higher on global markets.

Russia’s main grain lobby group warned on Friday that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships and ports could shut down grain exports via the Black Sea in the near future, pushing up prices and causing hunger in Africa and the Middle East.

Ukraine’s largest farming union, Ukrainian Agrarian Council, has also warned in recent weeks that Russian strikes on shipping near the southern port of Odesa were restricting Ukrainian exports in the key harvest period and could affect global food supplies.