Vladimir Putin’s military has dropped five more bombs on his own people, it has been claimed – the day after the Russian President sacked defence minister Sergei Shoigu.

The claims, by Ukrainian news agency Astra, come as Russian forces step up their offensive in the east of the country, with heavy fighting reported in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions.

However, Astra alleged that projectiles were falling short of their targets.

In a post shared via the Telegram app, it claimed: “Russia has dropped five more aerial bombs on the Belgorod Region over the past five days.”

Over the course of the last three months, Russia had dropped at least 32 FABs on Russian and occupied Ukrainian regions, Astra continued.

It said: “On May 10, the Russian Air Force dropped 4 FABs on the Belgorod region at once.

“So, a FAB-500 was found that day on the road from the village of Komsomolsky to the village of Blizhnee in the Belgorod district.

“The bomb was destroyed on May 11, and there were no casualties. Another FAB-500 was found in the village of Komsomolsky on the morning of May 10.

“The bomb was found in a residential building on Yuzhnaya Street. Residents of nearby houses were evacuated.”

On May 10, a FAB-250 was found close to the village of Yablochkovo, with no injuries reported, the statement continued.

It added: “On the same day, the FAB-500 was dropped in the area of ​​Razumnoe settlement. Residents were not evacuated, no one was injured.

“On May 11, FAB-250 was found in Novaya Tavolzhanka on the territory of Novaya Zarya LLC. The ammunition was destroyed on May 11, and there were no casualties. All five cases, local authorities, as always, preferred to hide, not reporting them publicly.”

Prior to this, there were further mishaps, Astra said, including, a Russian plane dropping an FAB-500 on Belgorod, resulting in seven people being injured, with no public acknowledgment.

On April 5, the Russian military shot down a FAB-250 in the occupied part of the Kherson region, five kilometres from the village of Novoukrainka in the Novotroitsk district, and on May 6, an “unofficial drop” of ammunition from a Russian plane occurred in the village of Vorontsovka, Krasnodar Territory.

Speaking today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “fierce battles” were taking place as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to push back a significant Russian ground offensive.

Russian emergency services have finished clearing the rubble in the region’s capital city of Belgorod, where a section of a residential building collapsed following what authorities claimed was Ukrainian shelling.

Fifteen bodies were pulled from the rubble, Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, and 27 other people were wounded.

Another three people in the city of Belgorod were killed by shelling late Sunday, he added.

It was not immediately clear whether these incidents were linked to the ones listed by Astra.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday replaced Shoigu, widely seen as a key figure in Putin’s decision to send Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia had expected the operation to quickly overwhelm Ukraine’s army and for Ukrainians to broadly welcome Russian troops.

However, the war continues to wage more than two years later.