‘People screaming and running’ – witnesses recall Ukrainian drone strike on Russian beach

Locals have described scenes of panic and “women’s cries” when a Ukrainian drone struck a crowded beach near the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik on Monday, killing seven people and injuring dozens more.

The attack on the village of Arkhipo Osipovka sent vacationers scrambling for cover. “People ran away. At first, they started screaming and began fleeing from there. I can still hear those women’s cries in my ears,” one man who witnessed the blast told RT.

No one expected such an attack “on a beach with children,” a local woman said, calling the strike an act of “treachery.” 

Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova Belova said on Tuesday that a fourth child had died from injuries. Regional authorities earlier reported that 58 people had been wounded, 21 of whom required hospitalization.

Doctors in Krasnodar Region said victims were brought in with complex mine blast injuries, including four children, two of whom are in intensive care. “They are receiving all necessary assistance,” Elena Kleshchenko, chief physician of the Regional Children’s Clinical Hospital said, adding that initial treatment on the scene and in nearby towns had been “timely.”

Acting deputy chief surgeon Aleksey Kovalenko at the Ochapovsky Regional Clinical Hospital said four of 14 adult patients “are in serious condition,” many of them with “combined trauma – shrapnel wounds plus burns.” The youngest patient is 19, while the oldest is 63, he added.

In Arkhipo Osipovka, locals and tourists have been laying flowers and toys in memory of the victims, creating makeshift memorials. “We came to leave a toy. Children died. Unfortunately, we witnessed all of this,” one man said.

”I have tears in my eyes. I am a pensioner, and I feel very sorry for the children and the people,” an elderly woman told RT.

Kiev has intensified long-range attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure in recent months. Moscow has described the strikes as terrorist attacks deliberately targeting ordinary citizens. On Monday, another Ukrainian drone strike claimed the lives of at least five people and wounded at least ten others near the town of Chekhov in Moscow Region.