Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Russian officials said at least 19 people were killed and 27 injured during Ukrainian missile attacks on the border region of Belgorod this weekend.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the region, said on Telegram that the bodies of 15 people had been recovered from the debris of a residential building that had collapsed following what he described as a “barbaric” Ukrainian missile attack. He said 27 people had been injured in the attack.

During separate shelling on Sunday evening, three more civilians were killed, he said, adding that one woman injured in an attack on Saturday had also died.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that Russian air defense systems had repelled the attack, destroying six Tochka-U missiles, four Vampire MLRS missiles and two Vilkha MLRS missiles. “Fragments of one of the downed Tochka-U missiles damaged a residential building in the city of Belgorod,” the ministry said on Telegram.

CNBC was unable to verify the report and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Both Moscow and Kyiv deny the deliberate targeting of civilians.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s Defense Ministry has claimed more advances in the Kharkiv area of Ukraine after Russian forces launched a new offensive in the northeastern region.

The ministry said on Telegram Sunday that its forces had “advanced into the depths of the enemy’s defenses” and had “liberated” the villages of Gatishche, Krasnoye, Morokhovets, and Oleynikovo had been captured in the Kharkiv region.

On Saturday, the ministry said the border villages of Pletenivka, Ohirtseve, Borysivka, Pylna and Strilechna had been seized. It also claimed that the village of Keramik in the Donetsk region had been taken.

More than 4,500 civilians have been evacuated in the Kharkiv region after Russian forces crossed the border and launched a widescale offensive there last Friday. Questions are being asked as to why Russian forces were able to advance in the region so easily, but a Ukrainian government spokesperson told the BBC Monday that the villages that had been captured were long-abandoned “zombie” villages.

Russia wants to seize the region, which includes the second-largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, in order to create what it calls a “buffer zone” to protect its own border regions from Ukrainian attacks, which have intensified in recent months.

Ukrainian officials were widely expecting the offensive and have sent reinforcements to the area but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday called for Western military aid deliveries to be made as quickly as possible. Russia is trying to make as many gains as possible before Western military supplies, as part of an unprecedented $61 billion U.S. aid package, arrive on the ground.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved his long-term ally Sergei Shoigu from the defense ministry to the country’s powerful Security Council amid a government reshuffle.

Russian economist Andrei Belousov will be Russia’s new defense minister, while Shoigu will replace Nikolai Patrushev, another long-standing Putin ally, as the secretary of the powerful Security Council — the body charged with advising the president on national security policy. Patrushev will be given another role, the Kremlin said.

Shoigu had headed the defense ministry since 2012, going in to the role with no military experience, and oversaw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin has remained loyal to Shoigu, although Russia’s military leadership during the war has been criticized by some Russian commentators, the most high-profile of whom was Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group of Russian mercenary fighters. Prigozhin died last August in a plane crash; the Kremlin denied any involvement in his death.

The appointment of Belousov, former minister of economic development, is bound to raise eyebrows in military circles but comes as Putin looks to cement Russia’s economy on a war footing and defense spending surges.

Kremlin press spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the appointment of a civilian to the defense ministry was rooted in a need for “innovation.”

“On the battlefield today, the winner is the one who is more open to innovation … Therefore, at this stage, the president has made a decision for a civilian to head the Defense Ministry,” Peskov said, news agency Tass reported.

Russia’s top general, the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, will remain in his job, the Kremlin said.

— Holly Ellyatt