06/19/2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
The activity of the occupiers and a new round of hostilities in the Kharkiv region boomeranged the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. In less than four months, the Russian Air Force dropped about a hundred aerial bombs on the heads of local residents, accusing the Defense Forces of Ukraine. Angry residents of the Russian border are going to leave the region, but first – to get an answer from their authorities.
More details about the situation can be found in the OBOZ.UA article.
A valid answer
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian occupying forces into Ukraine, the border of the Russian Federation has been feverish. Another round of panic among local residents began after the occupying forces crossed the border of the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation and the Kharkiv region of Ukraine in May 2024.
“At first, the Russian military told the local residents that they would go to Kharkiv, and that everything would be fine now.” But “fine” did not turn out. There was no question of taking the regional center, and neither Liptsi nor Vovchansk were occupied by the occupiers. But the inhabitants of the Russian border became even more “funeral” as a result of such actions, – said the interlocutor of OBOZ.UA in intelligence.
According to him, some of them still do not see a causal connection between the actions of the Russian occupation forces and the response of the Ukrainian military.
“From the territory of the Belgorod region, the occupiers are shelling the Ukrainian border. This is real terror. Look at how Kharkiv is suffering, in which the air alert can last for a total of more than 20 hours a day. The city and the region are shelled with anti-aircraft missiles, use anti-aircraft missiles, and launch rockets from Belgorod itself, of course, the Defense Forces of Ukraine will respond to neutralize the threat as much as possible. Any object of the occupiers (in this case, in the border of the Russian Federation) is our legitimate target when they are firing! But they started it themselves,” says the officer.
The Russian military acts cynically: for example, they launch rockets in the immediate vicinity of the houses of Belgorod residents. By the way, this is a well-known tactic in the territories occupied by them. Back in 2014, invaders in Donetsk began to build complexes right in the center of neighborhoods, near high-rise buildings. That is, they simply disguised themselves as civilians. Now they are doing it again on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Threat from “liberators”
A separate topic is how residents of the Belgorod region receive regular flights from their military. And it arrives in every sense.
The Russian air force bombards the Kharkiv region every day with FABs with UMPK modules, which allow the bombs to glide to the target, and not just fall. However, due to the low quality of these modules, they often simply do not work and, as a result, bombs fall on the territory of the Belgorod region of the Russian Federation. The Russian authorities stubbornly hide this, attributing the destruction to “Ukrainian shelling”.
For example, in just one day – June 15 – the Russian Air Force dropped five aerial bombs on the Shebekinsky district. According to FAB, they were found near the villages of Arkhangelske and Tseplyaevo-Druhe, two more fell near the village of Bilyanka, and one aerial bomb was found near a residential building in the village of Malomykhailivka – the residents had to be evacuated.
And on June 11 and 12, at least five more aerial bombs were found in the region. FABs were discovered in the village of Neklyudove, the village of Batracka Dacha, the village of Novobudivka, in the area of the village of Leninskyi, as well as in the village of Tsepliaevo-Druhe.
Random landing of aerial bombs is not a rare phenomenon among the Russian occupiers. According to rough calculations, there are at least 100 deadly and destructive “surprises” during the three months of spring and half of June.
For example, on May 4, 10 cars and 31 houses were damaged in Belgorod as a result of the dropping of FAB-500, and seven local residents were injured.
From the same opera and the collapse of a section of a residential high-rise in Belgorod on June 12, as a result of which 17 people died, about 30 were injured. At the time, the Russian Defense Ministry said that this happened due to an unsuccessful repulsion of a missile attack. But military experts do not agree with the statement of the occupiers.
“The destruction from the detonation is clearly visible on the building’s bottom floors. The power of the explosion was at least half a ton. A rocket would not have been able to break through all the floors of the high-rise building and explode on the first floor. This could only be done by a bomb, for example, a BETAB-500 concrete breaker, which is now also often used by PKS.
“The Russian Federation uses the OFAB-500 from the UMPK. In my opinion, everything points to the descent of the defective BETAB-500 from the Su-34, which has already happened more than once in Belgorod, but without such large-scale destruction with tragic consequences,” he wrote on his channel. Oleksandr Kovalenko, military and political columnist of the “Information Resistance” group, in Telegram
Power to sneeze, you have to go
During two years of full-scale war, the Russian border regions faced several waves of departure of local residents. Now a new and more intense one has begun.
On June 10, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine published an audio recording of a conversation between residents of the Belgorod region, in which they discuss “at least” a temporary evacuation due to the escalation of hostilities in the Kharkiv region. However, in social networks, residents of the region say that “it’s time to make a drastic decision” because you cannot count on the authorities.
Under conditions of anonymity, they express themselves even more sharply in a conversation with Russian opposition resources. For example, the residents of the destroyed five-story building in Shebekino (which, considering everything, was also hit by an aerial bomb of the “liberators”) did not wait for any help.
The house will be demolished on June 20. As a result of the explosion, five people died, and the authorities promised only meager compensation to those who survived.
“Nobody knows anything, you can’t get through to anyone, everyone turns things over to someone else. Promised 10 and 50,000 rubles to people who lost their homes, appliances, etc. are tears, not help (…) No one helps us, neither at the local nor at the federal level. Help is only in words and on paper, but in fact we are really left to the will of fate,” the Russian Kyrylo told the “We can explain” project.
According to another resident of the house, Svitlana, people cannot get any help from the authorities. At the same time, she did not forget to mention that the local residents help the Russian occupiers.
“There are no benefits and payments, housing is expensive, food in a store is more expensive than in Moscow, the real salary is 30 thousand rubles at best. We here by ourselves trade in our grief, hide, feed, clothe soldiers, while Moscow dances. We were exchanged for the resources of the “DPR” and “LPR”. We just want to die from such a life, the woman said.
Meanwhile, as a result of a new round of hostilities in Kharkiv Oblast, housing prices in the Russian border area fell even more. Angry residents of the Belgorod region are already ready to leave here forever, but first they hope to get some compensation. However, the authorities of the Russian Federation are unlikely to do this, because hiding behind the population and then shouting to the whole world about the victims is a favorite tactic of the aggressor country.
This is terrific news. The more miserable the roaches in mafia land are, the better it is for this planet.
“Angry residents of the Russian border are going to leave the region, but first – to get an answer from their authorities.”