“We continue to take our children out. Today, 300 children will be sent to rest in (the) Kaluga (region) and another 300 will go to Yaroslavl,” explained Viacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, on his Telegram channel. He recalled that another half thousand minors from the Shebekino and Graivoron districts, the most affected by the attacks, have already been transferred to the Voronezh and Penza regions.
In turn, he specified that the authorities of the annexed Crimean peninsula are willing to receive a thousand children, to which must be added the 400 that will be housed in Lipetsk and the Siberian region of Tomsk. Gladkov explained this morning that shelling of border towns in his region continued throughout the night.
Last night, he estimated at four the deaths on Friday due to the impact of projectiles on a road and in the patio of a private house. Among the injured are two children aged 11 and 13, who have had to be hospitalized after being hit by shrapnel.
Thousands of other inhabitants evacuated after Russian military incursion
Since the incursion almost two weeks ago by two Russian paramilitary groups backed by Ukrainian artillery – the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom for Russia Legion – the Belgorod authorities have had to evacuate thousands of people from the border.
Those groups, which insist they have no conflict with the local population, among whom they say they have collaborators, have expressed plans to seize control of part of Russian territory to establish a military administration.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed to have repelled another three attacks by those saboteurs in Shebekino on Thursday and caused more than 50 casualties among the enemy ranks. Both local authorities and residents have criticized the lack of foresight of the Kremlin and the Russian Army when it comes to guaranteeing the security of the border with the neighboring country.