Quotes
We should call it a war, a full military operation. Not some counterterrorism or a special military operation. That’s all wrong."
It wasn't pretty."
Evgeny Bakalo, a resident of neighbouring Belgorod Oblast, told The Financial Times We were left alone. With children, without shelter, without money. Our kids are afraid to sleep at night."
In the video, posted that evening on a Telegram blog called 'Our native Sudzha,' one woman can be heard saying Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin], tell your officials responsible for truthful information to show the real situation. These lies are causing civilians to die."
We called the emergency services. They said everything was calm, and that there was nothing to worry about,
But she's most worried about the house and her animals,
The Russian Federation has cut off the power supply to all these villages in order to stop the Ukrainian troops,
wrote one user, named Pyotr, on one such site Where was the secret service? They deceived the people!"
Another user named Svetlana asked There is no connection. Our relatives living in distant regions can't get in touch with us,
wrote Juliana on the local page of a social network When the shelling started, my sister Julia fled Sudzha in a mad rush,
It's a regional alarm, not just for us,
The people living in the Russian border regions near Ukraine are in urgent need of reliable information,
We're used to it now, I've stopped going out into the hallway,
My friends and relatives who support the war are already calling Putin a weak leader, because he's doing nothing,
My son called [me] and said they were told, ‘You would [have to] go anyway, but we will give you combat pay. We’ll train you a bit and send you with the assault troops. And if you don’t agree, you’ll be court-martialled and sent [to fight] anyway, you can’t escape’. So, they are planning to send them there anyway. They are trying to pressure them psychologically, manipulate them and send our children into this hell,
Verstka quotes one of the mothers Our president said that conscripts should not be involved in the special military operation. He was not supposed to participate in combat. Why has this happened? He has seen things he should not have seen. If you wanted them to defend the borders, why did you not prepare them
It's creating a real dilemma for Putin, and we've been in direct contact, constant contact, with the Ukrainians. That's all I'm going to say about it while it's active."
We must still understand whether it is a smokescreen activity,
the publication quotes Lykhovii Russia’s failure to defeat the Ukrainian attack so far and restore control of its border has exposed a lack of defensive reserves. Moscow has hundreds of thousands of troops on the frontline in eastern and southern Ukraine where it faces mounting casualties with fighting largely at a stalemate,
Regional officials are leaving more than a third of their recruitment quotas unfilled on average,