Thousands of children from Russia's Belgorod Oblast are to be evacuated to regions further away from the border with Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on March 18.
Reports suggest the security situation in Belgorod Oblast, which borders Ukraine's Sumy, Kharkiv, and Luhansk oblasts, has been deteriorating since March 12, when Russian anti-Kremlin militias broke into the region from Ukraine, resulting in clashes with the Russian military.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed on March 19 that Belgorod Oblast again came under a rocket strike after days of alleged attacks against the city of Belgorod.
The Kyiv Independent could not verify the claims of Russian authorities, and Ukraine does not usually comment on alleged attacks on Russian soil.
"We are evacuating a large number of villages today" and the authorities plan to evacuate 9,000 children from the region, Gladkov claimed at a press conference.
Gladkov said children would be evacuated from Belgorod and the surrounding district, as well as from Shebekino district, which lies southeast of Belgorod on the border with Ukraine, and Grayvoron district, which lies west of Belgorod on the border with Ukraine.
Residents of the town of Shebekino, the administrative center of Shebekinsky district, were previously evacuated in June 2023 after reports that militias had launched an incursion over the border. Gladkov said in July 2023 that the evacuated residents could return home.
Gladkov claimed in January 2024 that around 100 children were temporarily evacuated from the city of Belgorod after the city came under attack and taken to neighboring Voronezh Oblast.
Igor Kossov
