Death and destruction in a Russian city | Mint

For most people living in Belgorod, once a quiet and cozy Russian city 40 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, the war began on 30 December 2023, almost two years after the war in Ukraine began. That day the center of Belgorod was hit by a Ukrainian rocket, killing 25 civilians, including two children, and wounding more than a hundred. Since then the city and the surrounding province have been attacked almost daily. About 200 civilians have been killed and 800 injured – a small number compared to what Ukraine has suffered, but far more than anywhere else in Russia.

Mikhail Ivankiev, a 22-year-old final year student at Belgorod State University, had just finished shopping for New Year’s gifts for his parents and his fiancée. That New Year was supposed to be the start of his new life, his father says. “He had got his first job, and he was going to live with his fiancée. They planned to celebrate New Year’s Eve together and he said he would come and meet us the next day.” He never did. Mikhail died in hospital a few days later, having both his legs amputated.

Mr. Ivankiv Sr., an ethnic Ukrainian, was born and grew up in Soviet Kazakhstan, where his grandfather, a native of western Ukraine, was deported after spending several years in Stalin’s gulag. He grew up a Soviet man, served in the Soviet army and lived in Pskov in northwestern Russia. In 2013 the family moved to Belgorod. They were attracted by its mild southern climate, its modern feel, its fertile agricultural land and its proximity to Ukraine, where many of their relatives lived.

Kharkiv and Belgorod, which are 80 km apart and connected by a motorway, were not only formally sister cities; they formed a common historical, cultural and linguistic space. Belgorod was settled by free Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks who fled from Polish rule and Tatar raids. There was no difference in their accents and dialects. It was a rare family in Belgorod that did not have relatives on the other side of the border.

Kharkiv was the capital for the city of Belgorod, with a population of 340,000 people. A metropolis four times its size, “Kharkiv had a bigger influence on us than Moscow or St. Petersburg,” says Noize MC, a Russian rapper and singer who was born and raised in Belgorod and became famous in Kharkiv, where there were cooler bars and big shopping malls and cinemas. There was a McDonald’s that attracted Belgorod schoolchildren, and the Barabashova open-air market, the largest in Europe, attracted traders and shoppers from across Russia and the former Soviet Union. The border between Belgorod and Kharkiv was largely imaginary.

That changed in 2014. That was when the Russian army first invaded Donbass and tried to provoke a conflict in Kharkiv. The border between Belgorod and Kharkiv was fortified and Barabashova’s fortunes worsened. In 2014 Russian missiles hit the market, reducing 15 hectares of shops (about 20% of the total) to rubble. But the war has also turned Belgorod into a front-line city.

Over the past few months it has been hit by everything that flies, including rockets and kamikaze drones fired from Ukraine, debris falling from the sky when Russian air defences intercept them, and Russian glide-bombs destined for Kharkiv, which often accidentally fall prematurely. This is what happened on 4 May when a 500-kilogram bomb damaged 30 houses and ten cars and injured seven civilians, including a child.

Belgorod, once known for its new housing and good schools, is now excelling in concrete shelters, online schooling and regular drills on how to resuscitate, bandage and bandage the wounded. Belgorod, once a master of attracting migrants from across the country, is now seeing a record exodus of people. Some 26,000 homes have been damaged and 9,000 children have been evacuated. Those who remain are studying remotely. Elena Koneva, founder of the sociology-research organization ExtremeScan Group, estimates that 150,000 people have relocated from the province.

Incoming armor

While many people are leaving Belgorod, convoys of military vehicles are moving in. Russia has concentrated about 30,000 troops in the Belgorod region, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think-tank based in Washington, D.C. Most of the time they are invisible to civilians there, but on June 1 a man died in Belgorod when a drunk tank driver hit his car.

Vladimir Putin claims that his halted campaign in Kharkiv is aimed at protecting Belgorod from shelling. If that’s the case, his bombs are having the opposite effect. And people in Belgorod know that when Russia bombs Kharkiv, they suffer too. “When we hear that Russia has launched a major attack, everyone expects revenge,” says Timofey, a journalist and activist.

Ukrainian commanders in Kharkiv say the attacks on Belgorod have a dual purpose. The first is to destroy military infrastructure. The second is to spread the war spirit to people in Russia. While the first is a legitimate act of war, the second smacks of retaliation against civilians.

But, if anything, involvement in the war has strengthened Belgorod. Ms Koneva says about 70% of its adults volunteer: collecting money, joining territorial defence, staffing hospitals. Her research shows that support for Mr Putin’s “special military operation” is 5-7% higher than across Russia as a whole; not because they wish death to their neighbours, but because they fear retaliation from Ukraine. That fear breeds anxiety, despair, depression and a sense of isolation rather than any real enthusiasm, Ms Koneva says.

Despite his defeat, Mr Ivankiv has no hatred for the Ukrainian people on the other side of the border, not even for its soldiers. “They are people like us and their soldiers are also someone’s brothers, husbands, fathers.” He blames both countries’ governments for the war and describes it not as Russian aggression but as a tragedy. Like many people across Russia he knows what is happening is not right, but when talking about the war he resorts to familiar propaganda about Ukrainian nationalists, US interference in Ukraine or NATO’s threats to Russia: perhaps it is a psychological security blanket that helps him deal with his grief.

Mr Ivankiv says that as a conscientious citizen he never lost his devotion to his country and that he participates in all elections, including the latest presidential election in March. (He does not say who he voted for, but it does not matter because there was no choice in that election.) Belgorod was particularly hard-pressed during the three days of voting; most Belgorodians did not risk turning out. A reporter for Novaya Gazeta, one of the very few independent news outlets left in Russia, described empty polling stations. This did not stop Channel One, a major state propaganda TV channel, from reporting long queues of voters. Novaya Gazeta summarized the election result: “Turnout – 87%, ten people killed, 68 injured. Vladimir Putin wins.”

For many, especially young people who did not bother to attend the spectacle, the result was a clear sign of the disconnect between their reality and Kremlin politics. “Moscow doesn’t care about Belgorod at all,” says Timofey. But the government is giving the city money and facilities. On May 31, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry awarded Belgorod first prize in its all-Russian competition for a “city free from dangers.”

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