Three Russian soldiers from Ossetia wander the unknown streets, passing the great Cathedral of the Transfiguration late one night. They look unsteady on their feet, maybe drunk or tired. And they are looking to eat. Since February, they say, they have been fighting in Ukraine as part of the invasion force. They were stationed in the village of Velyki Prokhody, just north of Kharkiv, when the urgent signal came to flee back to Russia last week. “What can we say? An order is an order. We had no choice,” says one wearing a hat with the Z, a tactical symbol adopted as a patriotic emblem of war support in Russia. As the Russian front in Kharkiv has collapsed and Ukrainians who chose the Russian side fled for the border, a dark thought crossed the minds of ordinary people here: that the war might go to Russia. Asked where they are headed next, the soldiers say they don’t know. But it is possible, they believe, that they will be sent back south “to defend the border”. I see Russian soldiers buying camouflage clothes and I wonder why they don’t already have them Marina, kiosk owner in Belgorod The next day, about 400 National Guard soldiers reinforce the positions held by the Russian border guards. Even there, an activist who was present said the soldiers were soul-searching among themselves. In sight are Ukrainian troops on the other side in a tense confrontation. “How the hell did that happen?” said one border guard to another, two people who were there remember. In Belgorod, the signs of war and tension are emerging, even if most believe the conflict is unlikely to spill over. Oleg, a restaurateur originally from Ukraine wears a shirt with the words “Born in Kharkiv” and has bought plywood boards in case he needs to cover the windows of his restaurant. His partner, Denis, built a bomb shelter in his backyard and evacuated his grandmother from a Russian-held town in eastern Ukraine, now on the front lines of the conflict. Dennis says he hopes tensions will subside. But they also take precautions. “No one expects him to come here,” says Oleg. “But we have to be ready.” In Belgorod’s central market, soldiers stock up on supplies for the winter, signaling that Russia’s war could drag on for months or more. “Where are the balaclavas?” one shouts, rummaging through one of the many stalls selling camouflage hats, jackets, thermal underwear and other cold-weather gear. “Every day, dozens of boys come, there are so many now [since the counteroffensive]says Marina, who sells disguises at the market. “They all have these tragic faces. Now it’s more tense. A pro-war roadside Z sign in Belgorod. Photo: Victor Berezkin/Shutterstock “I see them buying these things and I wonder why they don’t already have them [them],” he also says, adding that the troops are buying basic food and cooking tools that he expected to be supplied by the military. An old woman in the market cries on one of their shoulders. “Please help us,” she begs emotionally. Men walk up to pat the soldiers on the back. From above, an explosion is heard. “Air defense,” mutters a man. “You feel [the war] here you somehow don’t feel it in other cities,” says Andrei Borzikh, a bankruptcy lawyer who co-finances thermal rifle scopes and other equipment for the Russian military. He wears a helmet and a bulletproof vest in his car. “You hear it.” Ukraine has given no indication that it intends to cross the border or do more than reclaim territory seized by Russia. But the very idea of the Kremlin’s quick, victorious war boomeranging across the border into Russia speaks to the reality of the defeat its forces have suffered in recent days. “Some miscalculations were made in each case – maybe they were tactical, maybe they were strategic,” says Borzikh. “The fact that Russia thought it had come there forever was clear.” Like other boosters of the Russian military, he says recent defeats must be attributed to Western support for Ukraine. “Russia is now in conflict with a third of the world community,” he says. He feels that no one cares until they touch him personally. Until someone brings a coffin to your house Ilya Kostyukov, opposition activist On a recent weekday, a security officer in blue fatigues holds a Kalashnikov rifle outside the red-brick Lyceum No. 9 on central Narodny Bulvar. An hour earlier, reports had emerged that the city was carrying out planned evacuations of local schools and major shopping centers, apparently in case of bombings or bomb threats. The governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reissued an order on Monday asking local authorities to check their bomb shelters. Schools near the border have been temporarily closed. Online videos show volunteers cutting down trees to build fortifications in the forested areas south of the city. People here now understand that the war is not going well. In a series of interviews, locals describe feeling shock in the early days of the war, followed by a surge of patriotic sentiment accompanied by pro-war symbols such as the popular Z plastered on cars and buildings. Now, much of that has disappeared as Belgorod settles into a long conflict that has come much closer than they ever expected. As in many Russian cities, there is almost no anti-war activism. 19-year-old Ilya Kostyukov, an opposition activist and founder of the Belgorod Anti-War Committee, says his focus is on encouraging people opposed to the conflict to speak out and that trying to persuade war supporters to change their minds is “pointless”. Asked about the immediate effects of the war on people in Belgorod, he points to the arrival of refugees and the recent blackout caused by an explosion at a nearby power station. The soldiers were also rowdy at the karaoke cafe where he works behind the bar. Fights break out regularly, he says. A group of soldiers refused to pay their bill and then pulled a pistol on a fake soldier. But largely, he says, apathy reigns in Belgorod. “For us, we feel like no one cares until they touch it personally. Until someone brings a coffin to your house, nobody cares.” Some families are separated at the border. Irina, a travel agent, lives with her daughter in their hometown of Belgorod. But her ex-husband and father of her child lives in Kharkiv. Russian missiles launched from the area around Belgorod arrive in Kharkiv, Ukraine at dawn. Photo: Vadim Belikov/AP “Our child is divided between two countries,” she says in a strained voice. “Absolutely equally. Whatever happens.” Two weeks ago, she says, her ex-husband told her he had been drafted into military service by Ukraine. He was ready to serve because he felt it was his patriotic duty. He is afraid that he will be killed. “I lost my mind a little bit and said some really nasty things,” she says of their most recent conversation. “Anything can happen. I wanted to save the father of my child. “He is a citizen of Ukraine and he is fulfilling his duty to his country – and he is trying to fulfill his duty to his family.” In the evenings, Yulia Nemchinova, a volunteer who delivers aid to people who have recently arrived in Belgorod from Ukraine, goes to a small container in the industrial sector that she calls “the warehouse”. Inside, there are crackers and cookies, diapers, tampons, tea and coffee, and dozens of other products that won’t spoil in the heat or cold. On her phone, she has a spreadsheet of nearly 1,200 entries from families who have arrived, asking for basic goods. He estimates that 6,000 people are in need. One apartment alone held almost two dozen people, he says. “Belgorod is overflowing.” Almost 85% of recent arrivals from Ukraine want to stay near the border, he says. This led many to refuse to go to government refugee camps along the border that would later send them further into Russia. There is a sense, even among Putin’s supporters, that Russia is losing hearts and minds in Ukraine. At an aid distribution center, pro-Kremlin Ukrainians ask why they have not been warned of the counterattack or received more government aid since arriving in Russia. “We feel homeless and like nobody needs us,” says a pro-Russian woman who fled occupied Kupiansk, a town recently retaken by the Ukrainian army. As promised to all those who fled the war in Russia, he received 10,000 rubles (£143) from the government. “We got the 10,000 rubles, but my house was there, and I’ve thrown it all away and become homeless,” she says. A Russian-based activist who regularly traveled to occupied Ukrainian territory to evacuate people says he was stunned by the lack of investment in infrastructure there. He remembers the feeling of seeing an “apocalypse” while standing at an empty crossroads in Kupiansk. He brought 3.5 tons of food and medicine to an orphanage where children were staying. In other places, they simply traveled through small villages to bring food and medicine to the locals, often elderly, who were left behind. In Vovchansk, he says, there was no light or electricity for several months. “I think that’s one of the failures of the Russian military – that they didn’t deliver enough benefits. So people welcomed the arrival of Ukrainian troops,” he says.
