Russia: children evacuated from bombed Ukrainian border areas

UPGRADE DAY

The Russian authorities announced on Wednesday that they had begun the evacuation of children from certain border areas of Ukraine which had been intensively bombarded for several days, expressing alarm at a “deterioration of the situation”. 

“As of today, we are taking our children out of the Chebekinsky and Grayvoronsky districts,” said Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region where these two are located. zones.

“Today, a first group of 300 children will be sent to Voronezh”, a city located some 250 km to the northeast, therefore further from the Ukrainian border.

The Belgorod region was the scene last week of a spectacular incursion by armed men from Ukraine which caused shock in Russia.

Since then, several areas of the region located in the immediate vicinity of the border come under heavy mortar and artillery fire, as well as drone attacks, according to local authorities.

Four people were injured overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday in a “massive” strike on the border town of Chebekino, Gladkov said. “The situation is deteriorating,” he said.

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According to him, more than 260 projectiles fell on the Belgorod region on Tuesday. On Tuesday evening, Mr. Gladkov announced that one person had been killed and two people injured in a Ukrainian bombing of a center for displaced people.

Bombings and incursions have increased in recent weeks in Russia as Kiev says it is preparing a major counter-offensive aimed at repelling Russian forces from the territories they occupy in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, a drone also fell within the perimeter of an oil refinery in Ilsky, in the Krasnodar region (south), without causing any casualties or damage, local authorities announced.

This same refinery had already been targeted in early May by two drone attacks which had caused fires.

The Russian capital, Moscow, was targeted at dawn on Tuesday by an unprecedented drone attack, which caused minor damage and slightly injured two people, according to the authorities.