Deadly attacks on Russian regions bordering Ukraine are increasingly bringing home the costs of Vladimir Putin’s invasion. That doesn’t yet mean people are turning on the Russian president over the war.
Regions including Belgorod and Kursk have faced drone and missile attacks in recent weeks as Ukraine mounts a campaign targeting infrastructure and industrial facilities including oil installations to try to undermine Russia’s war machine.
The strikes are upending civilian life particularly in Belgorod, which has also faced ground incursions from Russian volunteer militias fighting on the side of Ukraine. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov told ruling party officials that 16 people had been killed and nearly 100 injured in the past week, adding “we are evacuating a large number of villages.”
After winning a stage-managed landslide in the weekend’s presidential election, Putin is facing a growing clamor to improve air defenses and tighten border security to protect residents. Ukraine is threatening to step up its campaign to damage Russia’s industrial capacity and undermine public morale to weaken support for Putin with the war in its third year.
“Our life changed and turned into hell,” said Mikhail, 43, a Belgorod resident, who asked not to be identified fully because of security concerns. “People began to be afraid and panic. Everyone who could has begun to leave.”
Gladkov late Tuesday ordered the transfer of 9,000 local children to other Russian regions for safety and told schools near the border to shut early for the spring holiday. He also restricted access to six border villages starting Wednesday.
Despite the turmoil, election officials this week said Putin won 90.7% of votes in Belgorod region with turnout reaching 87%, well above the record 77.4% reported nationally.
Russia regularly attacks Ukraine with missiles and drones, and carried out a concerted campaign to knock out power infrastructure in the winter of 2022-2023 to try to freeze Ukrainians into submission. Ukrainian air defenses had greater success this winter in shielding key infrastructure.
Ukraine said early Thursday that it downed 31 Russian missiles over Kyiv in the first large-scale attack on the capital after a 44-day pause. Missile debris damaged some residential buildings and 10 people were injured.
Putin vowed to protect border areas when the attacks on Belgorod were raised at a Kremlin meeting with his election campaign team on Wednesday. “There are different ways to do that, they aren’t simple, but we will do it,” he said.
The Russian fast food company Vkusno i Tochka, which took over the chain of McDonald’s Corp. after the US giant left the country, said it had temporarily closed all of its restaurants in the region for safety reasons.
Billionaire Alexey Mordashov’s Severstal PJSC, which owns the Yakovlevsky iron ore mine near Belgorod that’s less than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the border, said last week it would provide 310 million rubles ($3.3 million) to support employees working “in uneasy conditions.”
The steelmaker has a program of relocating families to other regions until the situation in Belgorod is stabilized, the company said. It also offers free access to the online Foxford school, which is part of Mordashov’s group, for children unable to attend school due to the attacks.
Three rebel Russian groups — the Russian Volunteer Corps, the Siberian Battalion and the Legion of Freedom — have claimed responsibility for cross-border attacks into Belgorod. On Wednesday, they warned in a statement on social media that attacks were intensifying and called on the governor to order a full evacuation of the region’s civilian population.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told top army officials Wednesday in Moscow that thousands of what he called Ukrainian troops were killed or wounded in attempts to capture border settlements in Belgorod and Kursk regions during eight days of fighting. More than 50 tanks and armored vehicles as well as a helicopter had been destroyed in the clashes, he said.
Ukraine says the assaults inside Russia are conducted by Russian volunteer battalions, which carry out their own battle plans independently of the government in Kyiv.
The attacks on Belgorod are forcing Russia to divert forces from the front line, said a person close to the Kremlin, asking not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly. War is being fought on Russian territory, the person said.
Despite the attacks, most people in Belgorod continue to support Putin, Mikhail said.
“But among my friends the attitude toward the war and Putin hasn’t changed,” he said. “We understand who started it all and that this is the answer to that.”
