KYIV, Ukraine - Russian officials in the southern border city of Belgorod offered to evacuate worried residents on Friday, an unprecedented announcement that follows waves of fatal Ukrainian attacks.
A policeman stands in front of a heavily damaged residential building, three days after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, on January 5, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lyudmyla Shevtsova, an 84-year-old , an ecologist and a university professor who was still teaching well into retirement age, was mourned by former colleagues, students and family at an Orthodox Christian service at the yellow-painted Holy Intercession Cathedral near her home. A missile fell in the yard of her block of flats causing a powerful explosion and setting off fires that wounded more than four dozen people. The grey Soviet-era block of flats where Shevtsova lived was a hive of activity as volunteers and municipal workers rushed to block up windows with chipboard and planks amid freezing temperatures and snow. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP)
The Kremlin has tried to maintain a semblance of normalcy on the home front, but the recent strikes on Belgorod have brought the Ukraine conflict closer to home for Russians.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov's assurance that scared civilians can relocate represents the furthest-reaching measure taken by any major Russian city since Moscow ordered the invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.
"I see several appeals on social media where people write: we are scared, help us get to a safe place," Gladkov said in a video message.
"Of course we will! We have already moved several families," he added.
His offer came a day after overnight shelling wounded at least two people and knocked out glass from high-rise buildings, prompting widespread concern from residents.
The bout of shelling prompted city officials earlier Friday to urge residents to secure their windows with tape to prevent shattering from blast waves -- a measure widespread across Ukraine.
Ukrainian shelling in Belgorod less than a week ago killed 25 people -- the worst attack on Russian civilians since the conflict began.
- Relocate 'as long as necessary' -
Gladkov said residents would be transported to the towns of Stary Oskol and Gubkin, further from the border, where they would be housed in "comfortable conditions".
"You will stay there for as long as necessary," he added, but warned there would not be enough temporary accommodation to house everybody.
"I will appeal to my colleagues, the governors of other regions, to help us," he said.
His announcement came hours after Kyiv said it could not confirm that Russia had fired North Korean missiles into Ukraine after Washington accused Moscow of using weapons provided by Pyongyang.
The White House said late Thursday that Russia was using North Korean weapons and was also seeking missiles from its ally Iran, as it burns through stockpiles of key munitions.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby described the deliveries as a "significant and concerning escalation" but Ukraine said it had no independent evidence.
"So far, we have no information that such missiles have been used. The United States made a statement to that effect," Ukraine's air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat told state media.
"So experts will study the wreckage, and then we can say whether this is a fact or not. I can't confirm it yet," he added.
In the grinding war of attrition, Kyiv and Moscow have struggled to refill stockpiles of artillery shells, drones and long-range missiles.
The Pyongyang-supplied missiles with a range of around 900 kilometres (550 miles) were fired by Russia in two attacks within the past week, Kirby said.
He said at least one of the North Korean-supplied missiles had landed in an open field in the Zaporizhzhia region on December 30.
It is one of four regions that the Kremlin claimed to have annexed in September 2022 but still does not control entirely.
Moscow's forces then fired "multiple" ballistic missiles into Ukraine as part of a mass aerial attack on January 2, he added.
Russia rained down missiles on Ukraine's two largest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, on that date. Ukraine hit back at the Russian border city of Belgorod, forcing schools to close.
- Ukraine drone barrage -
Ukraine also released images on Friday of what it said was a Russian Kinzhal ballistic missile, which it claimed earlier in the week to have downed using the US Patriot anti-aircraft system.
Ukraine's state emergency service published photographs on its Telegram channel showing a crane extracting the remains of a missile from the ground, which AFP was not immediately able to verify.
Ukraine had said on Tuesday it had shot down ten Kinzhal missiles Russia fired at the country.
Kinzhal missiles make up part of an arsenal of weapons that Putin has claimed were indestructible because of the speed at which they travel, up to ten times the speed of sound.
According to the British defense ministry, Moscow reserves these warheads for what it considers to be "high-value and well-defended" targets.
Meanwhile Ukraine's air force said Friday that Russia had launched nearly 30 Iranian-designed attack drones overnight, but that 21 had been downed.
Russia's defense ministry said its forces had repelled a Ukrainian attack over Crimea, shooting down 36 drones over the peninsula annexed in 2014.