Russia ‘to evacuate 9,000 children’ from Ukrainian border due to shelling
19 March 2024, 15:44
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslev Gladkov, said the children are to be moved further east.
About 9,000 children are to be evacuated from a Russian border region which is being shelled by Ukraine, an official claimed.
Kyiv’s forces have increasingly been striking at targets behind the extensive front line that has changed little after more than two years of war.
The children are to be moved further east, away from the Ukraine border, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, Vyacheslev Gladkov, said.
The announcement came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin wants to create a buffer zone to help protect border regions from long-range Ukrainian strikes and cross-border raids.
Ukraine has increasingly used its long-range firepower to hit oil refineries and depots deep inside Russia and has sought to unsettle the Russian border regions, putting political pressure on Mr Putin.
Civilian areas of Belgorod have reportedly been battered in the fighting. According to Mr Gladkov, 16 people died and 98 were injured over the last week alone.
On Saturday, he ordered the closure of shopping malls until Monday and schools until Tuesday because of the security situation.
The planned evacuation of children is one of the biggest publicly announced in the Belgorod region since the war began in February 2022.
About 1,000 people, including children and their families, were evacuated to other Russian regions last June and there have been other sporadic reports of evacuations over the past year.
It was unclear whether adults would be accompanying the children under the latest evacuation order. If so, the total number of people being moved out of Belgorod could be much higher.
Roughly 600 people were in temporary accommodation on Monday after being evacuated from their homes, Mr Gladkov said.
Mr Putin discussed the cross-border incursions at a meeting with top officials of the Federal Security Service, the FSB.
Three people were wounded in a Ukrainian attack on Tuesday in the Belgorod region, Mr Gladkov said, including a 14-year-old who had part of a limb amputated. His mother was also seriously hurt in the attack, he said.
The previous day, four members of the same family died in an attack on the Belgorod village of Nikolskoe, according to Mr Gladkov. A grandmother, mother, her partner and 17-year-old son were killed after a missile struck their house, he said.
It has not been possible to independently verify the claims.
Two Ukrainian drones were shot down over Belgorod and another over the neighbouring Voronezh region overnight, the Russian defence ministry said. It gave no details of any damage or injuries.
Meanwhile, Russia used S-300 missiles to attack the city of Selydove in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine overnight. Four people were wounded and houses and cars were damaged, the regional prosecutor’s office said.
On Monday, Russian attacks in Donetsk killed one person and wounded another, according to Vadym Filashkin, the regional governor.
