This is the moment a Ukrainian drone kills children sunbathering on a Russian beach near Putin's £1billion palace as Kyiv unleashes its most intense bombardment of the war.  

Russian officials have claimed that 11 people were killed in the alleged attack, including three children and four adults. A further 40 have been injured, with 21 in hospital. 

Footage of the alleged attack on Arkhipo-Osipovka, near the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik, shows a missile crashing into a beach packed with sunbathers and exploding.

A specialist medical disaster team was dispatched to the scene. 

The strike came just hours after Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone bombardments on Russia since the war began in 2022. 

Multiple targets were hit including oil refineries, warehouses and a drone factory.

The resort is situated just a few miles from president Vladimir Putin's 'billion dollar' holiday palace.

Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of Russia's southern Krasnodar region where Gelendzhik is located, said: 'What happened today was a deliberate attack by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population, which has no connection whatsoever to military infrastructure.'

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of resorting to terrorism. Kyiv has not commented on the strike, but it has been reported that a Russian naval base about 25 miles (40 km) away may have been the intended target. 

Footage from the beach showed the drone hurtling towards the ground, before detonating in what appeared to be a dense crowd of people. It is unclear whether the device had been shot down by Russian air defences. 

Beachgoers were heard screaming just before impact and those in the water quickly returned to shore. 

One witness told local media: 'We were on the beach at the time. I'm in complete shock. 

'We were on the beach, didn't have time to leave, hid behind a ledge, covered ourselves with sun loungers, and didn't see where it exploded.'

Another said: 'While we were parking, we saw crowds of people leaving the beach, cars driving away.

'A friend called me and said we had to turn around and leave because a drone had crashed. We saw a man with a bloody shoulder.'

A local resident said: 'We were already home when we heard a barrage of gunfire, like a machine gun, and an explosion. Everything shook.' 

Last month, the Kremlin accused Kyiv of killing 11 people, including four children, in an attack on a holiday camp in the Russian-held part of Ukraine's ‌Zaporizhzhia region.

Russia itself has repeatedly struck targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, displacing millions and laying waste to swathes of the country. 

Thousands of civilians have so far died in the war, most of ​them Ukrainians killed in Russian attacks.

Ukraine has stepped up long-range attacks across the border in recent months, mainly targeting oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses, in what it says is a campaign to make Russians feel the cost of the war.

In Belgorod, just 20 miles from Russia's border with Ukraine, a drone factory was targeted by drones. 

Footage shared online showed the factory being blown up and a woman was heard saying: 'Everything's on fire there, everything. It's a disaster, that's where they make drones and teach you how to fly them. It's ****ed, it's all blown up.'  

The beach attack came as Ukraine launched possibly its most intense bombardment of the war.

Two major oil refineries were blown up, as well as a warehouse owned by Wildberries – Russia's version of Amazon – while the Engels-2 military airbase that houses strategic bombers was also hit. 

Ukrainian forces also targeted fuel trucks heading to Russian-controlled Crimea. 

'A fire broke out at one of the company's logistics sites in the Vladimir region following an attack,' Wildberries said in a statement, adding that warehouse staff had been evacuated.

Regional governor Alexander Avdeyev said the attack on the warehouse was carried out by drones.

'There is damage and a fire,' he posted on the Russian messaging app Max, adding that 'a young man was injured'.

Since mid-July, Ukraine has struck around 20 sites belonging to Wildberries across various parts of Russia and Crimea.

The initial attacks overnight on July 18 left eight people dead and nearly 90 wounded at sites in the Moscow and Tambov regions.

Since then, Ukrainian drone strikes have targeted sites near St Petersburg, Simferopol in Crimea, Krasnodar, Volgograd and Samara.

Wildberries is a highly popular online retail platform in Russia. The attacks on its warehouses are part of a campaign of long-range Ukrainian strikes targeting civilian infrastructure in Russia, which has been waging a large-scale offensive in Ukraine since February 2022.

Kyiv says its aim is to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the war.

Russia said this morning that it was stepping up protection of ships in the Azov-Black Sea basin in a move that follows a sharp escalation of attacks at sea by both sides in the war.

The Kremlin's transport ministry said in response to 'the tense situation in the Sea of Azov stemming from hostile drone attacks on maritime vessels', that it had set up a task force to find new routes and switch cargo flows to other modes of transport.

'A number of stevedoring companies have already expressed their readiness to handle additional cargo volumes and accelerate shipment rates at their terminals, within the limits of their operational capabilities,' a statement read.

Together with the defence ministry, 'additional measures are being implemented to ensure navigational safety and to protect maritime vessels in the Azov-Black Sea basin'.

Russia, the world's largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine, also a major agricultural exporter, have been attacking each other's agricultural export facilities and commercial vessels in the Black Sea area in recent weeks, driving wheat prices higher on global markets.

Moscow's main grain lobby group warned on Friday that Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ships and ports could shut down grain exports through the Black Sea in the near future, pushing up prices and causing hunger in Africa and the Middle East.

Kyiv's largest farming union, the Ukrainian Agrarian Council, has also warned in recent weeks that Russian strikes on shipping near the southern port of Odesa were restricting exports in the key harvest period and could affect global food supplies.