Russia has begun to evacuate residents from the border region of Belgorod following a surge in deadly Ukrainian strikes, in a rare admission of the dangers posed by a war from which Moscow has sought to isolate its citizens. Approximately 300 residents of Belgorod city “decided to temporarily move” to accommodation centers in cities elsewhere in the region, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Monday. Gladkov on Friday offered to help any Belgorod residents worried by the recent spate of Ukrainian attacks on the region, which borders northeastern Ukraine.
In Monday’s message, Gladkov said his office had received 1,300 applications to send children from Belgorod to school camps in other regions, and that his colleagues from the regions of Voronezh, Kaluga, Tambov, and Yaroslavl some distance from Belgorod are “ready to help us.” Belgorod authorities have begun restoration works following the recent Ukrainian shelling attacks, Gladkov said, and promised to update residents on the progress of these efforts.
Kyiv resumed its targeting of the Russian region after Moscow on December 29 unleashed its biggest air attack on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion. The next day, retaliatory Ukrainian strikes on Belgorod killed at least 25 people, prompting more waves of Russian strikes in a bloody start to the new year.
Russia launched another wave of air strikes across Ukraine on Monday morning, killing at least four people and injuring 38, Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement. The attacks targeted Kharkiv region in the east of the country, Dnipropetrovsk in the center, Zaporizhzhia further south and Khmelnytskyi in the west.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used “nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal” in the “terrorist strikes,” to which he pledged Ukraine’s military would respond. The deadly strikes on Belgorod, while not comparable to the destruction wrought on Ukraine, are the latest in a series of efforts by Ukraine to bring the war home to Russians.
Ukraine has consistently targeted Russian regions near the border, but its December 30 attack on Belgorod is thought to be one of the single deadliest incidents reported.The strikes came after Russia fired 158 drones and missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, at civilian targets across Ukraine, killing at least 47 people.
