Russian authorities are evacuating 9,000 children from the Belgorod area following shelling from pro-Ukrainian forces, the regional governor announced on Tuesday.

The Russian city near the Ukrainian border region of Kharkiv has been increasingly attacked by militias fighting on the side of Ukraine in the days before and during Russia’s presidential election at the weekend.

In the past week, 16 people have been killed and about 100 injured in the Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said at a meeting of the governing United Russia party in Moscow.

Three people were also injured by shelling early on Tuesday, he said.

Russia, which attacked Ukraine more than two years ago, had already evacuated an unspecified number of people in 2023 due to attacks on the region.

According to local Russian media reports, Gladkov said children from the regional capital, Belgorod, and its surrounding area, as well as those from two more nearby districts, were now being evacuated.

On Friday, 1,200 children were taken to regions well away from the border.

It is unclear exactly what role Kyiv is playing in the attacks on Russian soil and whether the shelling comes from Russians opposed to President Vladimir Putin, who won an election that international observers say was a sham.

On Sunday, Putin did not rule out the possibility of his troops re-occupying Ukrainian border areas to form a kind of buffer zone against such attacks.

Russian troops tried to invade the city of Kharkiv in the early part of the war but were forced back.

Ukraine’s second-largest city suffers from near-constant artillery and rocket fire from Russia.

(dpa/NAN)