Ukraine helicopter attack Russia oil depot latest update | THE POPULAR TV |

Ukrainian helicopters attacked a fuel depot in the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod, Russian officials said.

If confirmed, it would be the first attack of its kind by Ukrainian forces inside Russia since Vladimir Putin's forced invasion five weeks ago.

An oil storage depot was set on fire in a Russian city just north of Ukraine after what Russia described as an attack by two Ukrainian helicopters.

A video shared on Twitter showed a blaze near apartment blocks in Belgorod, 40km (25 miles) from the border.

Some clips appeared to show rockets hitting the oil depot.

Ukraine's top security official, however, denied Ukrainian forces were behind the attack.

"For some reason, they are saying we are behind it. This does not correspond to reality," security council secretary Oleksiy Danilov said.

Ukrainian aircraft have not struck targets in Russia previously.

Yet Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of launching the attack, and later Russian defense ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov gave details.

He said that at around 05:00 Moscow time (02:00 GMT) two Ukrainian Mi-24 helicopters entered Russian airspace at extremely low altitude and "launched a missile attack on a civilian oil storage facility" on the outskirts of Belgorod. Some storage tanks were damaged and caught fire, he said.

"The oil storage facility has nothing to do with the Russian armed forces," he said.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said the incident "cannot be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for continuing the talks" with Kyiv. So far those peace talks have made little progress.

The alleged attacks come as humanitarian routes out of bombarded Mariupol collapsed ahead of a further round of talks between Russia and Ukraine.