Joe McConnell
A state of emergency has been declared in Russia’s border region of Belgorod following attacks by Ukrainian forces.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said the situation was “extremely difficult” due to daily shelling in the region.
“Homes have been destroyed, civilians have died and been injured,” he said.
Follows Ukraine surprise cross-border attack in Russia’s Kursk region last week, prompting mass evacuations and the declaration of a state of emergency by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a video on Telegram, Governor Gladkov said he would ask the government to declare a state of emergency “at the federal level.”
He said that the city of Shebekino and the village of Ustinka were attacked by Ukrainian drones. No casualties have been reported so far.
Russia says it shot down 117 drones overnight, which mainly targeted four regions: Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod.
Belgorod lies just south of the Kursk region, the scene of Ukraine’s deepest incursion into Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said troops had advanced further into Russian territory, while army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Kiev was “in control of 40 square kilometers” with 74 captured settlements.
But it is not yet clear how much Russian territory has been captured, and there is skepticism about Syrskyi’s earlier claim that a total of 1,000 sq km is under Ukrainian control.
Ukraine said it would not hold on to captured Russian territory, adding that it would stop raids if Moscow agreed to a “just peace.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhy said that Kiev is not interested in “grabbing” Russian territory.
“The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace… the sooner the incursions of Ukrainian defense forces into Russia will stop,” he told reporters.
President Putin said on Monday that Ukraine rejected Russian proposals to return to a peaceful resolution plan.
“It seems that the enemy, with the help of its Western masters, is realizing its will and the West is fighting us at the hands of the Ukrainians,” he said.
President Zelensky has long said that Ukraine will not negotiate with Moscow until Russian forces leave all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Russia has so far had difficulty stopping the Ukrainian advance: some 200,000 Russians have fled their homes in parts of the Kursk region.
Moscow insisted on Tuesday that Ukrainian attempts to push deeper had been thwarted, but that has already been proven wrong in the past.
US President Biden said on Tuesday that the offensive was “creating a real dilemma for Putin”.
