Ukrainian drone strike on Russian beach resort kills six, including three children
A drone slammed into a crowded beach in Arkhipo-Osipovka near Gelendzhik on Monday, killing at least six people and wounding around 40, Russian officials said. The attack, which Moscow blamed on Ukraine, struck without air raid warnings.
The strike
On Monday morning, a drone crashed onto a crowded beach in Arkhipo-Osipovka, a village near the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik. Videos verified by Reuters show the unmanned aircraft slamming into the sand, followed by a loud explosion. Krasnodar region governor Veniamin Kondratyev said six people were killed, including three children, and about 40 others were wounded; 21 of the injured were hospitalised. Some Russian media later reported seven dead. The governor described the incident as an attack on civilian infrastructure.
The number of people killed in the village of Arkhipo-Osipovka has risen to six, three of them children.
No air raid sirens sounded before the impact, leaving hundreds of beachgoers unprepared. Footage captured people fleeing the water and seeking shelter.
Target and responsibility
Russian authorities blamed Ukraine for the strike. Ukraine's military did not comment. BBC Verify noted the drone may have been aimed at the Russian naval base in Novorossiysk, about 40 kilometres away. The independent outlet Agentstvo identified the beach as adjacent to the Rassvet recreation base, owned by a branch of NPO Mashinostroyeniya, a key Russian rocket and space enterprise. Ukrainian monitoring channels speculated the drone could have been diverted by Russian electronic warfare systems. The Russian defence ministry has not confirmed whether the drone was shot down.
Reactions
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Ukraine a "terrorist band" and accused NATO countries of sponsoring terrorism.
In the centre of Europe operates a terrorist band that has occupied the state apparatus of Ukraine. The sponsors of terrorism are the NATO countries.
The attack occurred about 22 kilometres from the so-called "Putin's Palace" on the Gelendzhik coastline.
Other strikes and political fallout
On the same day, Russian-installed head of Crimea Sergei Aksyonov reported that a separate Ukrainian attack killed four civilians. In Ukraine, a Russian strike on Kryvyi Rig, President Volodymyr Zelensky's home city, killed three people and damaged a gas station and several cars, according to Dnipropetrovsk governor Oleksandr Ganzha. Meanwhile, Russian anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin, who was recently detained and barred from running for parliament, announced he had left the country and was in Paris.
Background
The Black Sea coast is a popular summer destination for Russian tourists. The Gelendzhik area has faced repeated drone threats. On 2 August, debris from a downed drone broke windows in a local shop. A year earlier, drone fragments sparked a forest fire that required helicopter intervention, though no one was hurt. The local airport, closed since February 2022, resumed operations only in July 2025 after repeated airspace closures due to drone risks.
