Broken windows of a damaged residential building is seen after shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the town of Shebekino, Belgorod Region, Russia on June 21, 2023.
Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
A senior Russian police officer was killed by a drone while mowing his lawn on Saturday, reports say.
Identified as Alexey Ch., the man worked in Russia’s anti-corruption service, Baza reported.
The local governor confirmed a man was killed by a drone while mowing grass at a country house.
A lieutenant colonel in the Russian police was killed on Saturday by a drone attack while mowing the lawn at his country house, according to local news reports.
The senior officer, identified as Alexey Ch., was the deputy head of a regional department in Russia’s anti-corruption and economic security service, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported.
He was on his day off and mowing grass in Shchetinovka, a rural locality in Belgorod, when the drone attack struck, per Baza.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, wrote on Sunday that a man was killed by a drone while mowing a lawn at a country house in Shchetinovka. However, he did not identify the deceased.
Gladkov blamed Ukraine for the drone attack, saying Kyiv’s forces “dropped an explosive device” on the man, inflicting fatal shrapnel wounds.
Belgorod is the Russian region closest to Ukraine’s northeastern border, and Shchetinovka is around 20 miles from Kharkiv, a major Ukrainian city that saw intense fighting in 2022.
Ukraine did not claim responsibility for the strike as of Tuesday, and has rarely commented on the recent drone attacks plaguing Moscow, its airports, and Russian air bases.
Ukrainian drone attacks caused the capital’s airports to temporarily shut at least three times this week, and Russia said on Monday that it shot down a Ukrainian drone approaching Moscow.
While Kyiv did not say it carried out these strikes, Ukrainian officials have celebrated the attacks, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling them an “inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process” resulting from Russia’s invasion.
The Russian Defense Ministry and Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours.