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Russia Quietly Evacuating Belgorod as Putin Says Rebel Raids 'Failed'


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Russian authorities said Tuesday that 9,000 children will be evacuated from the Belgorod region near the border with Ukraine because of shelling, while President Vladimir Putin said an incursion by three militia groups of Russian defectors serving with the Ukrainian Armed Forces had "failed."

"Today we are resettling a large number of villages, Now we are planning to remove about 9,000 children from Belgorod, Belgorod district, Shebekinsky district, Grayvoronsky district," the regional governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said, according to the state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

Russian President Vladimir Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a meeting of the Federal Security Service board in Moscow on Tuesday. Putin said that an incursion by three militia groups of Russian defectors serving with the... SERGEI GUNEYEV/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The latest development comes after the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Siberian Battalion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK)—three Ukraine-aligned volunteer military units—launched a cross-border raid into Russia's southern Belgorod and Kursk regions on March 12. The groups say their operation is ongoing.

Last week, the militia groups said they captured the village of Kozinka. On Sunday, members of the militia groups raised their flags in the village, posting photos on Telegram. The RDK also published a video showing one of its members firing at a Russian armored vehicle in the area.

On Wednesday, shelling was reported in the village of Razumnoye in the Belgorod region, and three people were injured, Gladkov said.

He wrote on his Telegram channel: "In the village of Razumnoye, as a result of shrapnel hitting a private residential building, 2 people were injured: a 14-year-old teenager had a partial amputation of the upper limb, shrapnel wounds to the chest and left lower limb, and his mother had shrapnel wounds to the neck, abdominal cavity and lower extremities," he said on his Telegram channel. He added that both victims are in serious condition.

"Another woman was also injured in the village; she was on the street at the time of the attack; she had shrapnel wounds to her upper and lower extremities," Gladkov said.

The governor said that the shelling damaged 10 private residential buildings and several apartments in five apartment buildings. Windows were broken in a school and kindergarten buildings.

Putin, meanwhile, said on Tuesday that the cross-border raids were a failure.

"All attempts to break into our territory by sabotage and terrorist gangs consisting of regular enemy units, foreign mercenaries...and all kinds of s***... all these attempts failed," Putin said, according to the state-run news agency Tass.

The Russian president also said that the groups "planned to stage a real terrorist raid on the cities and towns of the Belgorod and Kursk regions on the border, but were met with gunfire and "suffered heavy losses, including armored vehicles and artillery."

The three groups have repeatedly urged residents of Belgorod and Kursk to evacuate. On March 13, they said in a joint statement on Telegram that they were "forced to inflict fire on military positions located in Belgorod" because "every day, dozens of ordinary innocent Ukrainians (mostly women and children) die from shelling from Belgorod."

On Tuesday, the Freedom of Russia Legion asked residents of the city of Belgorod to "leave immediately" or "find reliable shelter due to the threat of rocket and artillery fire."

"We strike at military targets, but due to the placement of enemy military facilities in the residential sector, civilians may suffer! We ask Belgorod residents to evacuate urgently!" the group said.

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