War in Ukraine, battlefront moves to Russia: 11 dead in Belgorod

The front of the war between Ukraine and Russia is expanding and now also encompasses the Russian region of Belgorod, a few tens of kilometers east of Kharkiv. It is here that in the last twenty-four hours the most striking episodes of a conflict that has lasted almost eight months have been recorded and it is precisely the crossing of the border that makes the course of the conflict increasingly unpredictable. The bloodiest event took place at a shooting range, where eleven soldiers were killed and fifteen were wounded.

The dynamics are unclear and may only partially have to do with the war in Ukraine. The versions are conflicting: some speak of an attack, others instead of a shooting between fellow soldiers, according to Kiev for religious reasons between Muslim soldiers (perhaps Tajiks in training) and Orthodox Russians. In any case, one thing is certain: the already latent tension in the entire Belgorod region increased even more because missiles rained from Ukrainian territory that hit a thermal power plant, then a railway line and an ammunition depot.

There is still a lack of long-range weapons in Kiev, those capable of reaching up to 300 kilometers away, but the available rockets, even if short-range, still manage to damage infrastructure near the border, important logistical and military bases for Moscow. The Kremlin’s reaction so far has been cautious, perhaps because it is unclear what really happened in the polygon, but the risk, after what happened with the destroyed bridge in Crimea, is that Putin will respond once again with attacks on everything. , to Ukrainian soil. Meanwhile, the hottest areas of conflict always remain those in the south and the Donbass. In Kherson, where the director of the local Philharmonic, Yuriy Kerpatenko, was reportedly killed for refusing to act in favor of the Russians, the Kiev army has consolidated the achievements of the last week and decisively aims to retake the city, the first among the great, that fell under Moscow’s control in the first weeks of the war. New attacks were recorded on the same day in the Zaporizhzhia area, where two schools were destroyed, while five kamikaze drones were shot down in the Dnipro region.