“We are doing nothing, just panicking” – Russian Belgorod residents

8 months ago
9

In an intercepted call published by Ukraine's Military Intelligence , residents of Belgorod, Russia express fear and uncertainty about what to do and where to go as fighting between pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters and Russian forces reportedly continued in the border region.
In one recording, a woman tells someone seeming to be her husband, “There is a house-to-house poll about evacuation. We did not open the door. They are asking who is evacuating and where.”
The woman says that a friend, Zhenka, living nearby, received an offer to evacuate to neighboring Voronezh, west of Belgorod.
“That's what they offer. But there are no offers anywhere else,” the woman tells the man. “We are doing nothing, just panicking and waiting for something I can't even tell for what exactly.”
Meanwhile, another intercepted call, published by RBC-Ukraine, suggests local authorities are blocking evacuations.
“Korochansky, a district in Russia's Belgorod region was shelled and taxi drivers were shot at, I don't know how our people will get there,” a woman says. “The rail line has already been unhooked. That's it. No one is allowed to go there or back. I don't know”.
A Kyiv Post source in the Ukrainian security services said that Belgorod authorities are blocking Russian civilians’ evacuation to keep people present in the region for the March 15-17 election.
Starting last Tuesday, anti-Kremlin Russian volunteer-fighters groups – the Russian Volunteer Corps, Freedom of Russian Legion and the Siberia Battalion – began battling the Russian army, in a rebellion meant to coincide with Putin’s “sham elections.”. The leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, Denis Nikitin, called on locals to evacuate.

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