AFU servicemen riding on a T-64 tank in Ukraine’s Sumy region, near the border with Russia, 11 August 2024. Photo: Roman Pilipei / AFP / Scanpix / LETA
Over 11,000 people have been evacuated from areas of Russia’s western Belgorod region that border Ukraine, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on Tuesday morning as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the region’s border intensified.
Residents of Belgorod’s Krasnoyaruzhsky district were evacuated due to the “operational situation” on the border, Gladkov said, adding that around 1,000 evacuees had been rehoused in temporary accommodation elsewhere. According to Russia’s last census in 2021, the district’s population numbered 14,000 people, meaning that almost 80% of its residents had left by Monday evening.
Gladkov announced on Monday morning that residents would be evacuated from the district amid “enemy activity” on the border, with roads into the district being closed by Monday evening in what district head Andrey Miskov called a “forced temporary measure necessary to protect the lives and health of our citizens”.
The evacuation was prompted by Russian pro-war Telegram channels reporting on Monday that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had begun using tanks to attack Russian defensive positions around the village of Kolotilovka, on the Krasnoyaruzhsky district’s border with Ukraine.
Gladkov told Vladimir Putin in a Monday meeting that between 50–70% of residents had evacuated the Belgorod region border town of Shebekino, where he said “social tension was growing” amid AFU shelling and border skirmishes.
Alexey Smirnov, the acting governor of the neighbouring Kursk region, where the AFU continued to strengthen its foothold after launching an unprecedented cross-border incursion last Tuesday, told Putin that over 120,000 people had been evacuated from the region as of Monday, with the whereabouts of a further 2,000 in Ukrainian-controlled settlements unknown.
The Institute for the Study of War said in its daily assessment on Monday evening that Putin continued to “portray himself as an effective and knowledgeable manager of the situation” in Kursk and the surrounding regions, despite Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim on Monday evening that the AFU was in control of approximately 1,000 kilometres of Russian territory.
