Posted on 06/03/2023 9:17:11 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Over the last five days of May, Ruslan, an English teacher in a Russian town near the Ukrainian border, heard the distinct sound of a multiple rocket launcher strike for the first time. Shelling would begin around 3 a.m., sometimes shaking his house, and continue through the morning.
He had heard the thud of explosions in distant villages in the past, he said, and in October shelling damaged a nearby shopping mall. But nothing like this.
“Everything changed,” he said.
Fifteen months after Russian missiles first roared toward Kyiv, residents of the Russian border region of Belgorod are starting to understand the horror of having war on their doorstep.
Shebekino, a town of 40,000 six miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders. The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades.
“The town became a ghost in 24 hours,” said Ruslan, 27, who evacuated on Thursday after a sustained campaign of shelling.
In the last several days, The New York Times interviewed more than half a dozen residents of the border region to get a sense of the deepening anxiety among Russian civilians. Like Ruslan, most insisted on being identified by only their first names, citing a fear of retribution for speaking about the war.
“Shebekino was a wonderful, flowery town on the border with Ukraine filled with happy, neighborly people,” said Darya, 37, a local public sector employee. “Now only pain, death and misery live in our town. There is no power, no public transport, no open businesses, no residents. Just an empty, shattered town in smoke.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
MORE HERE:
[EXCERPT]
The war from across the border has impacted citizens in the Belgorod region of Russia to the point that many towns and villages have been evacuated, with some looking like ghost towns—this after armed groups mounted multiple raids since the war’s start—as well as increased shelling and rocket fire. Just two days ago the anti-Moscow “Russian Volunteer Corps” said they launched another attack out of Ukraine, after a bigger one nearly two weeks ago left multiple casualties and many saboteurs killed.
Dude - the New York Times got a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the Ukraine.
Walter Duranty, 1932.
No game changers. The Russians are still stalled out in their illegal invasion.
LOL! Very funny! Good one, excellent.
Yes, Walter "What Holodomor, I don't see any Holodomor" Duranty.
I hear that the Ukrainians have them surrounded in Artemovs’k...
“Shebekino was a wonderful, flowery town on the border with Ukraine filled with happy, neighborly people,” said Darya, 37, a local public sector employee. “Now only pain, death and misery live in our town. There is no power, no public transport, no open businesses, no residents. Just an empty, shattered town in smoke.”
This could be “the” game changer.
As the population of these villages are spread in to the interior of Russia, support for the war could be inflamed.
Of course it is possible it could turn the other way.
Culturally , I would say .. inflamed is more likely.
If the people start calling for Putin to “do more” ... Katie bar the door.
If they start pleading for peace .. Putin could be backed into a corner ... not good in any case.
Somebody is really playing for all the marbles with this ...
Who is bank rolling the border fighters?
Propaganda war is a dangerous thing ... sometimes it turns on you.
Biggest game changer...
Putin gets a clue and leaves Ukraine.
This will rally Russians to quit the Ukraine incursion, just like 9/11 rallied Americans to quit meddling in the Middle East … NOT.
If anything it will drive enlistment and muster local militia.
I feel this is out-there propaganda. Russians know what the horrors of war are - citizens fought German soldiers in hand to hand combat to protect Moscow. They went toe to toe with Hitler’s war machine.
When Putin invaded he did so to thwart NATO’s plans for regime change in Russia; he focused on restraint re Ukr citizens; he wanted to cripple the infrastructure so Z would surrender. Yes, yes I know the Uke advocates insist the Russians were conducting a bloody torture hellsport, but then I posted a Tweet about a woman in the Ukrainian gov admitting she falsely posted stories about Russian war crimes. I don’t think Russian soldiers are saints - I think they are busy, on a mission to get in and get out and didn’t hold bacchanalian feasts wherein they tortured citizens for sport; Putin sees the region as Christian slavs for the most part and wanted to restore relations at some point.
The citizens of Russia see NATO as an existential threat - and they are correct. They were furious with Putin’s restraint. When it was clear Z would never negotiate under any circumstances, Putin went ‘relentless bombardment’ and the citizens of Russia felt relief that he recognized the danger to Russia that the NATO alliance represented.
Because the Ukrainians lost Bakmut, they are targeting citizens in terrorist attacks. The Russian citizens thought this was military to military war and the Ukraine has made it clear they will attack non combatants directly, to distract from their losses and keep the money flowing.
It’s just appalling that the piece above does not acknowledge that Russia fought Germany and knows quite well what the horrors or war are. They just didn’t expect attacks on unarmed citizens.
My view is similar. Ukraine should focus on areas that it plans to recover and hold - emphasis on the hold.
Raids into Russia, unless directly for the purpose of destroying military hardware, are not worth the risks.
Tough enough for Ukraine to recover land to the east or to the south . . . and probably not able to recover both east and south - including the holding.
These tiny cross border attacks are relative pinpricks. I believe the total is maybe a battalion of “russian national volunteers”.
I remember now where my objection came from so strongly - decades ago I worked with international groups and, sorry to say, the penchant the Russians had of watching black and white movies of the war over and over again was the object of joking among the Americans, like “Who’s winning tonight?”
The Russians were ingraining the inhumanity of war into the public to the point I thought it could cause PTSD. Comedies were rare and had profound elements of loss/death/separation, and then it was time for another war movie showing death/sacrifice etc. - a steady diet to remind them how close they came to defeat. So the article’s notion that they are just now learning about the horrors of war just stunned me.
Take it to ‘em.
It may be a December 7th moment.
And remember the Maine.
And don’t forget September 11th.
Russian Revolution kicked into high gear after the 1905 loss to Japan.
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