'Nowhere Is Safe': Russian City Evacuates Hundreds Of Children

Russia said 25 people were killed in Belgorod last month, the deadliest civilian attack on its territory so far AFP

Authorities in the Russian border city of Belgorod began evacuating hundreds of children Wednesday after weeks of deadly shelling from Ukrainian forces.

Some 300 residents have already left the city, one of the biggest civilian evacuations on Russian soil since Moscow launched hostilities against Ukraine in February 2022.

"Today, 392 schoolchildren from Belgorod will go to out-of-town health camps in the Voronezh and Kaluga regions for 21 days," Belgorod mayor Valentin Demidov said.

The evacuations come a day after the Kremlin vowed Russia's military would do "everything" it could to stop the shelling, which officials say has left over two dozen people dead.

"Nowhere is safe," 42-year-old kindergarten teacher Evgenia Savenko told AFP, as she walked through the city's main square with her preschool-age son.

"It can happen anywhere -- at home or in a neighbouring town," she said. "The fear is always present. It never goes away."

At the train station, which was guarded by military and transport police, parents could be seen escorting children carrying rucksacks and small suitcases.

The evacuations are a blow to the Kremlin, which has tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy in Russia ahead of President Vladimir Putin's re-election campaign.

Schools near the border with Ukraine had already been ordered to shut beyond their winter holidays, after a Ukrainian attack on December 30 killed 25 people.

Putin vowed to intensify strikes in response to that attack, the deadliest on Russian territory since its Ukraine offensive began almost two years ago.

"Every day they bomb, in the morning and in the evening," said 83-year-old pensioner Nina Tikhonova, whose neighbour's house was damaged by shelling.

"My acquaintances took their children to Ivanovo," a Russian city some 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of the capital Moscow, she said.

The first group of children have left Belgorod for camps in the neighbouring region of Voronezh, further from the border, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said earlier on Telegram.

The city estimates that in total, some 1,300 schoolchildren are ready to leave, the mayor Demidov said, citing surveys given to their parents.