Death and destruction in a Russian city | World news

FOR MOST people in Belgorod, once a quiet and cozy Russian town 40 km from the Ukrainian border, the war began on December 30, 2023, almost two years after it broke out in Ukraine. On that day, the center of Belgorod was hit by a Ukrainian missile, killing 25 civilians, including two children, and injuring more than a hundred. Since then, the city and the province surrounding it have been attacked almost daily. About 200 civilians have died and 800 have been injured – a small number compared to what Ukraine has endured, but far more than anywhere else in Russia.

BONUS

Mikhail Ivankiv, 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. This New Year was supposed to be the beginning of his new life, his father says. “He had found his first job and was about to move in with his fiancée. They were going to celebrate New Year’s Eve together and he said he would come visit us the next day.” He never came. A few days later, Mikhail died in hospital, having lost both legs.

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Mr. Ivankiv Sr., an ethnic Ukrainian, was born and raised in the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan. His grandfather, a native of western Ukraine, was exiled there after spending several years in Stalin’s Gulag. He grew up as a Soviet citizen, served in the Soviet Army and lived in Pskov in northwestern Russia. In 2013, the family moved to Belgorod. They were attracted by the mild southern climate, modern flair, fertile agricultural land and proximity to Ukraine, where many of their relatives lived.

Kharkiv and Belgorod, 80 km apart and connected by a highway, were not just formally twin 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 between their accents and dialects. There was hardly a family in Belgorod that did not have relatives on the other side of the border.

For Belgorod, a city of 340,000, Kharkiv was the capital. The metropolis is 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 rose to fame in Kharkiv, which had cooler bars, bigger shopping malls and cinemas. There was a McDonald’s that drew Belgorod schoolchildren, and the Barabashova Market, one of the largest in Europe, which drew traders and shoppers from Russia and across the former Soviet Union. The border between Belgorod and Kharkiv was largely fictional.

That changed in 2014. That was when Russian forces first entered Donbass and tried to foment unrest in Kharkiv. The border between Belgorod and Kharkiv solidified and Barabashova’s fate worsened. In 2022, Russian missiles hit the market, turning 15 hectares of stalls (almost 20 percent of the total area) into rubble. But the war has also turned Belgorod into a frontline city.

In recent months, the city has been hit by anything that can fly, including missiles and kamikaze drones from Ukraine, debris falling from the sky when intercepted by Russian air defenses, and Russian glide bombs that were actually intended for Kharkiv but were often accidentally dropped prematurely. This happened on May 4, when a 500-kilogram bomb damaged 30 houses and 10 cars and injured seven civilians, including a child.

Belgorod was once known for its new housing and good schools, but now boasts concrete shelters, online classes and regular training in CPR, bandaging and tying the injured. The city was once a pioneer in attracting migrants from across the country, but today it is experiencing a record outflow of people. About 26,000 homes were damaged and 9,000 children evacuated. Those who stayed are studying remotely. Elena Koneva, founder of ExtremeScan Group, a sociological research organization, estimates that 150,000 people have relocated from the province.

Incoming Armor

As many people leave Belgorod, columns of military vehicles arrive. Russia has concentrated about 30,000 troops in the Belgorod region, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. Most of the time they remain invisible to civilians, but on June 1, a man died in Belgorod when a drunken tank driver rammed into his car.

Vladimir Putin claims that the purpose of his delayed advance on Kharkiv is to protect Belgorod from shelling. If that’s true, his bombs have the opposite effect. And the people of Belgorod know that when Russia bombs Kharkiv, they themselves suffer. “When we hear that Russia has launched a major attack, everyone expects a revenge strike,” says Timofey, a journalist and activist.

Ukrainian commanders in Kharkiv say the attacks on Belgorod have a dual purpose. First, to destroy military infrastructure. Second, to show the people of Russia that war is taking place. While the former is a legitimate act of war, the latter smacks of retaliation against the civilian population.

But the war has actually strengthened Belgorod. Nearly 70 percent of adults in Belgorod are involved in volunteer work: raising money, helping with territorial defense and manning hospitals, Koneva says. Her research shows that support for Putin’s “special military operation” is 5-7 percent higher than in Russia as a whole; not because they wish their neighbors dead, but because they fear retaliation from Ukraine. This fear breeds anxiety, a sense of despair, depression and alienation, rather than genuine enthusiasm, Koneva says.

Despite his loss, Ivankiv feels no hatred toward Ukrainians across the border, even toward the soldiers. “They are people like us, and their soldiers are also someone’s brothers, husbands, fathers.” He blames the governments of both countries for the war, calling it not an act of Russian aggression but a tragic event. Like many people across Russia, he knows what is happening is not right, but when he talks about the war he resorts to familiar propaganda tropes about Ukrainian nationalists, America’s meddling in Ukraine, or the NATO threat to Russia: perhaps a psychological safety blanket to help him deal with his grief.

As a dutiful citizen, Mr Ivankiv says he has never given up on his country and he takes part in elections, including the last presidential election in March. (He declined to say who he voted for, but that hardly matters since there was no election in that election.) Belgorod came under particularly heavy fire during the three days of voting; most people in Belgorod did not dare to go to the polls. A reporter from Novaya Gazeta, one of the few remaining independent news channels in Russia, spoke of empty polling stations. But that did not stop Channel One, one of the main state propaganda channels, from reporting long queues of voters. Novaya Gazeta summed up the election results as follows: “Turnout – 87%, ten dead, 68 injured. Victory for Vladimir Putin.”

For many people, especially young people who did not bother to take part in the farce, this result was a clear sign of the discrepancy between their reality and the Kremlin’s policies. “Moscow simply does not care about Belgorod,” says Timofey. But just in case, the government has showered the city with money and perks. On May 31, Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry awarded Belgorod first prize in its all-Russian contest for “a city without dangers.”

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© 2023, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. By The Economist, published under license. Original content can be found at www.economist.com.