The Russian authorities evacuated about 300 residents of a border city with Ukraine, which had been subjected to attacks by Kiev forces for days, according to what the region’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced on Monday.
Gladkov said in a video clip on Telegram: “About 300 Belgorod residents, who have made the decision to leave temporarily, are currently being accommodated in shelters” in 3 regions located further from the border.
He added: “In the last twenty-four hours, we received 1,300 requests to send children to school camps outside the city, in other areas.”
On Friday, the local official suggested to the residents of the city who wished to evacuate them, given the increase in the rate of bombing.
The unprecedented evacuation decision from a large Russian city contradicts the efforts of the Kremlin, which has always sought, since the start of the war on Ukraine nearly two years ago, to suggest that the conflict does not directly affect the daily lives and security of Russians.
However, this strategy was completely shattered on December 30, when 25 people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the city, in the highest death toll inside Russian territory since the start of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Since the end of last month, Ukrainian attacks have doubled, specifically by launching missiles.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Monday that it had “intercepted” at 7 a.m. (04:00 GMT) a Ukrainian S-200 air missile “over the airspace of the Belgorod region.”
Gladkov said he contacted his counterparts in four other regions for “help”, and they all expressed their willingness to do so.
In an indication of growing concern, the city’s municipal council on Friday, for the first time in two years, asked residents to fortify their windows to “protect themselves” from possible flying glass as a result of Ukrainian strikes.
In the same context, local authorities postponed the date of returning to schools in the region from January 9 to January 19.
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2024-01-08 11:17:03
