The beach was packed with holiday goers, many lounging lazily in the turquoise waters when the drone slammed into white sand and burst into a fireball.
Russian officials said seven people were killed by the explosion in the Black Sea resort town of Gelendzhik on Monday that was captured on video and shared on social media verified by NBC News.
Moscow accused Ukraine of targeting civilians, which would constitute a war crime, and unleashed a barrage of aerial strikes on its neighbor. Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia come as its own civilians faced deadly Russian bombardment throughout summer.
Ukrainian officials did not confirm they were responsible for the incident, but they also did not deny it.
Three children were among those killed, while 58 people were injured, according to Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of the Krasnodar region.
“What happened today was a deliberate strike by the Kyiv regime against the civilian population — people who have absolutely no connection to military infrastructure,” he said on his official Telegram channel. “There can be no justification for such a cynical and inhumane terrorist act targeting children.”
The attack comes amid a concerted Ukrainian effort to push the war’s frontline closer than ever to Moscow, with strikes targeting shipping vessels, oil sites, warehouses and ammunition depots in recent weeks.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his largescale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Kyiv has honed an innovative and lethal strategy of using cheaply manufactured drones as it seeks to pressure Moscow into a peace settlement. Some hit their targets, while others are often shot down.
Between July 24 and July 31, at least 61 people were killed and over 320 wounded in Ukrainian shelling and drone strikes, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Friday.
After the explosion in Gelendzhik, Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said: “Russian air defense shot down a drone onto people lying on the beach.”
“It was Putin who killed these Russians,” he said in a statement. “Had he not started the war and the strikes on Ukraine, they would be alive.”
Kovalenko also accused Putin of downplaying Ukrainian attacks on Russia, creating an “illusion of peace” that has made the public complacent.
“Had they acknowledged the war on their own territory, people would have reacted more actively to the alert, which in some places in Russia is not even announced,” he said.
A separate attack had also hit a warehouse in Leningrad, its regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said early Tuesday.
