The Russian Federation claims that a Belgorod oil depot has been bombed by Ukrainian helicopters. Ukraine has denied this

OLENA MAZURENKO - FRIDAY, 1 APRIL 2022, 19:27

The Russian Defence Ministry has claimed that two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters carried out an airstrike on an oil depot in Russian Belgorod. However, in the early days of the war, the Russian ministry said it had destroyed all Ukrainian aircraft.

Source: Russian Ministry of Defence, quoted by pro-Kremlin media

Quote: "On 1 April at about 5 a.m. Moscow time, 2 Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters entered Russian airspace at an extremely low altitude.

The Ukrainian helicopters launched a missile attack on a civilian oil storage facility on the outskirts of Belgorod. As a result of the missile strikes, individual tanks were damaged and caught fire."

Background:

• On the morning of 1 April, Russian media reported a fire at an oil depot in Russia's Belgorod, which is close to the Ukrainian border.
• The governor of the Belgorod Region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, claimed that the fire was the result of an airstrike from two Ukrainian helicopters that had entered Russian territory at a low altitude.
• The Ukrainian Defence Ministry responded that Ukraine was not responsible for all disasters or events taking place on Russian territory, in particular regarding the fire at the oil depot in Belgorod.
• Russian presidential press secretary Dmitriy Peskov said that the explosion at the oil depot in Belgorod was not conducive to creating favourable conditions for the continuation of negotiations.