MOSCOW: Amid ongoing fighting in eastern and southern Ukraine on Sunday, officials in Russia announced a criminal investigation has been launched after gunmen killed 11 people at a military training facility near the Ukrainian border.

Two gunmen opened fire with small arms during a firearms training exercise on Saturday that targeted individuals who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, according to a report by the Defense Ministry, according to the Russian RIA news agency. According to the RIA, the gunmen, whom it called "terrorists", were gunned down.

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The incident in the southwest Belgorod region was the most recent blow to a "special military operation" in Ukraine under Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It comes a week after an explosion destroyed a bridge connecting Crimea, which Russia annexed to the Russian mainland in 2014, from Ukraine.

Without going into more detail, the Russian Defense Ministry said the attackers were from a former Soviet republic. A senior Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Erestovich, claimed that both

The men were from Tajikistan, a predominantly Muslim country in Central Asia, and had opened fire on others after a dispute over religion.

Reuters was unable to independently or immediately confirm statements made by prominent war commentator Erestovich, as well as casualties and other information.

Announcing the criminal investigation, Russia's Investigative Committee said that "11 people were killed by gunshot wounds and another 15 were injured as a result of an incident at a shooting range in the Belgorod region." Nothing more than this was revealed.

According to some independent media outlets in Russia, the death toll was reportedly higher than official estimates. According to Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, there were no locals among the dead or injured.

Later, Reuters was informed by two witnesses that they had seen Russian air defense systems foiling air strikes in Belgorod.

Putin announced Friday that the reservists' call-up in Russia should be completed in two weeks, marking the end of a divisive mobilization that enlisted hundreds of thousands of men to fight in Ukraine and many of them. had fled the country.

Belarus' strong Putin ally Alexander Lukashenko announced last week that his country's troops would be stationed close to the Ukrainian border with Russian forces, which he claimed were threats from the West and Ukraine.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry in Minsk announced on Sunday that less than 9,000 Russian troops would be deployed to Belarus as part of a "regional group" of forces to defend its borders.

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The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Russian forces on Sunday targeted Ukrainian posts on several fronts, including the cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions.

In the midst of fierce fighting in the Donetsk region and in and around Avdeevka, Russian forces attempted to advance on Bakhmut, which Ukrainian fighters have been defending.

According to the General Staff, Ukrainian planes struck Russian targets more than 20 times, shot down an enemy drone and struck 17 locations where troops and weapons were concentrated.

Of the four provinces that Putin recognized as belonging to Russia last month, three—Donetsk, Luhansk and the strategically important Kherson province—have seen particularly heavy fighting over the past weekend.

The head of the Russian-backed administration of the Donetsk region said on Sunday that the administrative building in the region's capital city of Donetsk had been damaged by shelling by Ukrainian forces.

“The building was hit directly, and it is seriously damaged. The fact that no one was killed is a miracle, Alexei Kulemzin looked at the rubble and noted that all city services were still operational.

The attack on the city of Donetsk, which was captured along with large parts of the eastern Donbass region by Russia-backed separatists in 2014, did not elicit an immediate response from Ukraine.

On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had stopped Ukrainian forces in their tracks in the areas of Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv, which it called "significant losses".

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Russia said it would continue to use long-range, precision-guided weapons to launch airstrikes against military and energy targets in Ukraine.

Residents of Mykolayiv lined up on Sunday, as they do every day, to fill water bottles at a distribution point as the war broke out, fighting supply cuts.

“It is a war crime, not war. War is when soldiers engage in war with each other; however, it is a war crime when civilians are involved, according to 51-year-old sales manager Vadim Antonyuk.

According to a spokeswoman for Ukraine's Southern Military Command, the damage done to the Crimea Bridge over the weekend has caused severe equipment and ammunition shortages for Russian forces.

According to Natalia Humeniuk of Ukrainian television, "nearly 75% (of Russian military supplies in southern Ukraine) came across that bridge." She also noted that strong winds had now halted ferries in the region.
Humeniuk remarked, "Now even the sea is on our side.

In retaliation, Putin last Monday ordered the largest aerial offensive against Ukrainian cities—including the capital Kyiv—since the beginning of Russia's invasion on February 24. Putin blamed Ukrainian security services for the bridge explosion.

While the situation in the larger Donbas region remained very challenging, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces were still holding the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut despite repeated Russian attacks.

Bakhmut, which is located on a major road connecting the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, has been the target of numerous Russian invasion attempts. They're both in the Donetsk area.

Although recent offensives in the east and south saw Ukrainian forces retake thousands of square kilometres (miles) of territory, officials predict that once they encounter more resolute opposition, progress will likely slow.

Zelensky estimated that nearly 65,000 Russians had died since the invasion on February 24; this number was significantly higher than Moscow's official September 21 estimate of 5,937 fatalities. 

The Pentagon estimated that between 70,000 and 80,000 people had died or been injured in casualties in Russia in August.