Life and death in Belgorod
War comes to Belgorod: local residents tell the BBC they feel burned out and abandoned as daily rocket attacks take their toll.
By Victoria Safronova.
Since the beginning of March, the Russian city of Belgorod, and the surrounding region have been coming under intensified daily rocket fire from Ukraine. BBC Russian has been speaking to local people to find out more about the impact on everyday life. Many say they are exhausted by the stress of living under constant threat of attack, and bitter about what they see as a lack of recognition and sympathy from the rest of the country.
All names have been changed on request for safety reasons.
“The shelling comes like clockwork,” says mother of two Arina, the fear palpable in her voice. “The first strikes come at 8am followed by a brief respite until noon. Then it starts up again at about 1pm. The next window also tends to be a short one – with missile alerts at 5pm in and around the city. The final shelling of the day is usually at 9pm.”
“At least it gives you time to get home from work,” she adds bleakly.
Belgorod is just 25 miles from the Ukrainian border. The town and surrounding region have been subject to cross-border shelling since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But in March the attacks intensified - often in response to renewed Russian strikes on Ukrainian territory, including a wave of rocket attacks on Kyiv on 21 March and a major strike on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure the following day.
Regional authorities say at least 20 people have been killed and 100 injured so far since March.
There is little official information to confirm the precise level and frequency of the cross-border shelling. Although the Russian Defence Ministry regularly reports that it has repelled incoming strikes on Belgorod, it does not give details of exactly how many missiles have been shot down. Ukraine does not usually comment on alleged strikes on Russian territory.
However, the situation described by Arina has been corroborated by many other local residents who have spoken to the BBC. They say the city and surrounding region is now regularly experiencing as many as six separate rocket attacks every day.
As a result, they say, many people have left Belgorod seeking temporary shelter elsewhere. The streets are very quiet with everyone trying to stay indoors as much as possible. Those that can are working from home.
Schools broke up early for the spring holidays in Belgorod and many other border areas.
And even before the holidays, in many schools across the region, pupils have been studying from home and attending lessons online.
On 22 March the city authorities began evacuating thousands of children to safety in other parts of Russia. At least 5000 have now left the region.
Boomerang attacks
The word “otvetka” [payback] is on everyone’s lips these days, says local resident Sofia, 30, who works in IT. People understand that the Ukrainian army is shelling the region because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
“The shelling just before new year was a turning point,” she says. “It’s clear that the responses to Russian shelling are getting heavier. There are more and more of these “boomerang” attacks – to-and-fro across the border. It’s getting less safe to stay at home.”
Since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Belgorod TV channel called Fonar TV has been keeping a count of casualties from cross-border shelling. The first death happened in May 2022. Since then another 135 names have been added to the list.
Over the last two years Belgorod’s citizens have learned to identify missiles by sound – like people living in frontline areas everywhere.
“S-300s; Iskanders [short-range missiles], air-defence, drones,” says Arina’s husband Stanislav, a computer programmer. “People get used to the way the different explosions sound.”
What are our three most favourite words now?” he jokes. “Cancelled missile attack.”
After two years there’s little to laugh about. Stanislav says the mood in the city is one of “bitterness and cynicism”.
“We’re burned out,” he says. People don’t really react to things anymore.”
The mood towards Ukraine has also changed.
Belgorod residents used to have some sympathy for the Ukrainian military, Stanislav explains. Many understood that the Ukrainians were acting in response to attacks by Russia, and that they were trying to defend or recapture their own territory.
But all that changed on 30 December, the day after one of the largest Russian strikes on cities across Ukraine. As the city centre was filled with people out shopping ahead of the New Year holiday, Belgorod came under the heaviest fire since the start of the Russian invasion. More than 25 people were killed, including five children, and more than 100 were injured.
“Missiles hit the gym, the leisure centre, the furniture store,” Stanislav says. “We realised they were no longer limiting themselves to just military targets.”
Burned out and hopeless
Stanislav says people in Belgorod now feel “pure, unadulterated anger.” “Sometimes even hatred.” He maintains that his own anger is reserved for “those who give the orders” on both sides.
“I’m a very empathetic person. I’m not just worried about Belgorod – I write to my friends in Ukraine, ask how they are,” he says. “But my empathy is running out.”
After a pause, he adds “Actually, my empathy has just burned out.”
On 15 March, one of Stanislav’s friends was badly injured when a missile strike hit while he was parking his car. He ended up in hospital with shrapnel wounds.
“It was the last straw,” says Stanislav.
That night the family found themselves sheltering in the hallway with the children again.
“Twelve rockets strike, nine are shot down, but three hit. You don’t get used to it. It’s terrifying every time. And even if you survive there’s no guarantee you’ll make it the next time,” he says.
“Things just felt hopeless.”
The next morning Arina told Stanislav it was time to leave Belgorod. They gathered up their things and headed south with their children to stay with friends. It was a long drive, and when they finally got there, Stanislav broke down in tears. Sadness at leaving home, fear for the future, and sheer exhaustion had finally got the better of him.
“I realised I couldn’t take it anymore,” he recalls. “It was painful.”
Stanislav and Arina are hoping things will quieten down and they will be able to return home in a few weeks. But there are no guarantees.
“We’ll keep monitoring the situation,” Stanislav says. “It’s the same for all my friends now – we’re guided by circumstance."
Voting under shellfire
Many people who’ve left Belgorod since the New Year’s Eve strikes, have taken temporary shelter in the neighbouring cities of Voronezh and Lipetsk, hoping it won’t be long before they can make the relatively easy journey home.
But in the first three months of this year, things have showed no sign of quietening down.
On 15 February seven people were killed and 19 wounded in the heaviest strike since December.
A brief lull followed, with only occasional missile strikes.
But in the week before Russia’s presidential elections, things took a turn for the worse.
Between 12 and 15 March, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had repelled attempts by what it called “saboteurs” to break through the border near Belgorod and Kursk.
Heavy fighting took place on the outskirts of the Russian town of Grayvoron, home to a border guards’ detachment.
The Defence Ministry said 550 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed, and 16 tanks and 19 armoured vehicles destroyed, but this has not been independently confirmed.
Two local people were killed in the fighting and at least 20 injured, according to Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
At the same time, regular daily shelling resumed.
"Thursday and Friday [14 and 15 March] were particularly memorable,” says Belgorod resident, Dmitry, 30, a civil servant.
“There were air-raid sirens at least four times a day. That never happened before, even when the shelling was really bad.”
On 16 March Dmitry and his wife Sofia left their home for the first time in almost a week to go and vote at a nearby polling station. They found the city deserted. At least a third of the cars had gone – clearly lots of people had decided to leave for the weekend.
Dmitry and Sofia say they’ve devised their own rules for walking down the street in case the shelling starts. They try to stick close to houses or fences “on the Kharkiv side.” That way, they believe, risk of injury is lower.
“But maybe we’re just getting paranoid,” says Sofia.
On polling days air-raid warning sirens were sounding regularly, and people were having to leave polling stations to take shelter every half hour.
After voting, the young couple left the city for their parents’ village of Skorodnoye, 85 km northeast of Belgorod. They spent several days there. "It’s further from the border, but it turned out it wasn’t safe there either," says Sofia. “There’s a constant hum, planes flying low.”
"I heard a jet engine and looked at the Ukrainian Telegram channels - they had an alert about air-raids and shelling,” says Dmitry. "It was clear what kind of plane it was, and what it was doing there."
Dmitry and Sofia returned home to Belgorod, feeling that nowhere in the region was safe.
They both express disappointment and resignation at the election results. Putin’s 90.66 per cent landslide in Belgorod region was not a surprise, but it was clearly fixed, they say.
Putin's position on the war shuts down any hopes for an early peaceful settlement, says Sofia, noting that Putin no longer mentions peace negotiations in his speeches.
“Frankly, there is no hope," she says.
Life in Belgorod
Not everyone links the rising intensity of the shelling with the elections.
“If it was just about the elections, why did the attacks continue afterwards?” says Elizaveta, a 30-year-old designer. “It’s convenient for many people to believe this is connected with the elections, so they can say: ‘They’re trying to break us.’ But the elections have passed, and the shelling continues."
But whatever the reason it’s clear that the rise in rocket attacks has effectively brought everyday life in Belgorod to a halt.
"They are hitting different parts of the city, and it’s impossible to guess where the next strike will be,” says Marina, a housewife. “We’re very worried. It's scary to go outside. There are casualties and damage after almost every shelling."
Local residents say that sometimes the only people out on the streets are volunteers, sweeping up shards of glass from shattered windows.
Shopping malls closed last week, and some cafes have reduced their opening hours or closed completely.
Almost all courier services have been suspended, although some stores still deliver groceries. There are sometimes online reports that Belgorod is running out of food, but all the locals interviewed by the BBC emphasise that there are no shortages.
Going out to do food shopping is now one of the only reasons people leave their homes. Everyone tries to be quick and to get back home as soon as they can.
For local resident Darina, 27, a graphic designer, the empty streets are a source of sadness.
“You look out on everything,” she says, “You get this creeping feeling of loneliness. It’s such a depressing environment. You see the craters from the explosions. Have you ever seen a worm gnawing an apple? That’s how the craters look, as if worms have been gnawing the asphalt. It's spooky.”
"I feel as empty as these streets," says Elizaveta. "You're just shaken up.”
Not everyone can work from home, and many people have to brave the streets despite the regular air raid sirens.
"Today my husband had just left the house when the shelling started," says Polina, a 35-year-old, who is looking for a job. "Fortunately, he hadn’t had time to get far."
Shop assistant Ksenia lives in the suburbs— she and her husband moved recently from the border town of Shebekino, which has been heavily shelled ever since the beginning of full-scale war. Ksenia hoped she’d be safe in her new place, but describes how the walls of the house "began to fall away" after some particularly heavy recent shellfire.
"It's even worse here now," she says, describing life after the move. “And we're on edge. We are already thinking of going further away — but where? There are jobs here, our children and grandchildren are here. If you go anywhere, they'll kill you there. It's better to be on home territory, but we’re living in fear."
Ksenia works in a grocery shop and has to commute to work every day. At the bus stop, there’s often a long wait. Public transport shuts down when the sirens sound, and the gaps between buses can sometimes last several hours. Since January, some bus stops in Belgorod have been lined with sandbags and concrete blocks to protect people from shelling.
Ksenia worries about having to go into work under such dangerous conditions, and her anxiety has only risen after shells have hit shopping malls and other public places. In February people were killed when the Plekhanov Street shopping centre was hit.
"No one here cares that a shell could hit our store," she says. “Other shops nearby close a few hours earlier or stay shut, due to the threat. But here? They’d rather we died than didn’t work.”
Plans to leave
It’s clear that two years of living in a state of constant fear is taking its toll on people in Belgorod.
And the situation is made worse by the feeling that the rest of the country doesn’t really care what’s happening.
Six months ago, Dmitry and Sofia both started taking antidepressants. Dmitry was diagnosed with moderate clinical depression.
"It's very out of character for me," he says. “I've been so active all my life. When there are problems, I find solutions. But I came to realise that I couldn't gather my thoughts together. I’m in a stupor. Dreams – what are those? Future plans? I don’t even know what will happen tomorrow.”
One of Dmitry’s friends is originally from Luhansk, an area of eastern Ukraine now occupied by Russia. The friend had been living in Belgorod for many years but recently moved back to his home town because it was quieter there than on the Russian side of the border.
Polina says that some Belgorod locals have got used to shelling, but she just can’t.
"I’ve developed very strong anxiety,” she says. “I'm shaking after every shelling, these are terrible sounds, explosions. Even in the bathroom, where there are no windows, the walls shake and everything rumbles. It seems to be right by you, although later you will find out the shell fell in a completely different area of the city."
Elizaveta says that many of her friends now experience what she calls a sense of “untouchable calm" - the more frequent the attacks, the calmer they feel.
"It's really just a defence mechanism," she explains. “You’ve already worried so much that when the terrible situation really comes, you are calm. But everything comes out in the end. Yesterday was quieter, just one morning shelling — and I felt how much built-up emotion I had, how angry I was. I knew what the real reason was. The situation we’ve been living with for several months is so difficult, of course it gets to you. I'm really scared, and it's okay to be afraid for my life and health, for my loved ones."
All the Belgorod residents the BBC has been talking to over the last three months are thinking about leaving.
Dmitry and Sofia are in the process of helping their elderly relatives to move, and then will be packing up and leaving themselves.
25-year-old graduate Anastasia has been wanting to leave for several months now, but can't afford it. In the autumn she was feeling so afraid for her life that she quit her job and dropped out of the university where she was studying for a master's degree. Her village is close to the border, it’s half an hour’s walk to the nearest bus-stop in an exposed area. There were no measures to protect her at work.
She has spent the last six months trying not to leave the house. But recently she has finally plucked up courage to apply for a job as an office manager in a nearby private medical clinic.
Anastasia shares screenshots of conversations with her future boss. If hired, Anastasia will get just 130 roubles an hour (£1.11, $1.40), but she’s happy with that, because her father is helping her out with money. He works as a security guard in Belgorod for a monthly salary of 23,000 roubles (£196.00, $248.43).
"I’ don’t have a job, I don’t have any money, and I’ve taken out loans to pay for food. I'm already afraid that soon there’ll be nothing to eat," she says. She would like to go to a safe place, but says it’s impossible for her.
"Belgorod residents don’t have the support system that would give us the confidence to leave,” says Yulia, a photographer. “We’re pretty much refugees – why can't they [the Russian authorities] give us some kind of financial support, help us with jobs in new places? It’s not at all clear what we should do. I'm trying to create a safety net for myself through friends and connections, but it's hard.”
"All this time, people are reading festive messages from Moscow on social networks — the last ones were dedicated to a concert in honour of Crimea. Then we created a thread with the question "If Crimea is yours, whose is Belgorod?”
“Who cares about our city?”
Yulia, like many of the Belgorod residents who spoke to BBC, describes "feeling abandoned." "Muscovites and people in other cities generally don’t even know that Belgorod is in Russia,” she says. “They ask if it’s really true that we are being shelled like this."
"I get messages like: a couple of sheds got blown up, and you're all panicking about it? People are dead and wounded, including children, and they’re writing to me about some sheds," says Darina. “It’s as if we’re inside an information bubble, and the rest of the world is getting on with its ordinary life on the other side. Who cares about war and pain? Who cares about our city?"
Belgorod residents have been bombarding Russia’s state-controlled Channel One television channel with these questions. They have demanded the chance to tell people in detail about the shelling, and what the region has to go through. One of the most popular hashtags is #BelgorodIsRussia.
In response, Channel One turned off the comments under their posts on the popular VK social network Since 12 March, the channel has reported that people have been killed in Belgorod region, but it’s news bulletins make no attempt to convey the scale of the attacks, local residents say.
Belgorod VK users have previously tried to draw Channel One’s attention to the shelling of Shebekino via the hashtag #ShebekinoIsRussia. But as a local news Telegram channel "Pepel" recently reported, Channel One filtered out comments mentioning Shebekino by adding the word "Shebekino" to spam filters. Yоur comment will only make it through now if you deliberately misspell the city’s name.
Feelings of resentment are noticeable in almost every large urban community on VK, or in discussions under posts on local Telegram channels. Recent big celebrations in Moscow to mark the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea and Putin’s re-election, have provoked particular anger in Belgorod.
"We haven’t even had a day of mourning for the dead in our region, not after the shelling on 30 December when 25 people were killed, nor after 15 February, when seven people were killed, nor this week," says Polina. “All this time, people are reading festive messages from Moscow on social networks — the last ones were dedicated to a concert in honour of Crimea. Then we created a thread with the question "If Crimea is yours, whose is Belgorod?”
"My friends just couldn’t believe this celebration" says Sofia. “How can they hold a big concert on Red Square when Belgorod is being shelled like that and people are dying? This is how people have been feeling ever since Shebekino started being shelled in 2022. The older generation feel it particularly strongly. They are outraged, why does no one care about our region, why does no one help us?"
Read this story in Russian here.
Translated by Pippa Crawford.
English version edited by Jenny Norton.
In my opinion, this story shows, among other things, the dangerous game of Putin’s regime: the more people of Russia suffer as the result of his invasion of Ukraine, the more they hate Ukrainians and rally behind him - just because he is “the one who will give us our revenge.” And it doesn’t matter anymore who actually was the real reason for their suffering. It will take years to heal this trauma.