On Saturday, Russia stationed air defenses over Moscow and distributed shelter instructions to citizens of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border in preparation for New Year festivities.
Some 2,000 military personnel will oversee Moscow’s air defenses as they “are on duty at combat posts on New Year’s Eve”, the Russian Defense Ministry said according to state media TASS.
“In total, for the New Year holidays and weekends, approximately 20,000 personnel from the Aerospace Forces Air Defense Missile Defense Training will be on air defense combat duty,” the media outlet said on Telegram.
Light decorations set up for the upcoming New Year in Moscow, Russia, December 22, 2022.
(Sefa Karacan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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The ministry did not say whether it planned an attack on the capital in the run-up to the new year, although according to Ukrainian media Pravda, Russia is also preparing areas along the Ukrainian border.
The Belgorod region – which shares a border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv oblast and whose regional capital is about 20 miles inland from the border – has seen several strikes in recent months as Ukrainian forces have pushed the front line further east.
According to the Ukrainian media, Russian authorities have provided local residents with plans for shelters in the city in case of further attacks.
Russia accuses Ukraine of being the cause of the explosion and the fire.
(Stringer/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Ukraine ousted Russian forces from Kharkiv in September, and in October Belgorod reportedly began to see an increase in shelling.
The regional governor claimed a massive fire broke out in mid-October after shelling fell on a Russian oil depot.
Shelling in the area then claimed two lives in November and power lines were reportedly damaged in early December.
A police expert holds a fragment of a drone with a handwritten inscription reading “For Belgorod. For Luch” after a drone attack in Kyiv on October 17, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
(SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
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Another shelling incident was reported on December 18 in which one person was killed, eight others injured and a dozen residential buildings damaged, according to regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
It remains unclear whether the incidents in Belgorod were intentional, and the Ukrainian government has not publicly commented on the strikes that targeted several Russian sites, including at least four separate strikes on Russian bases earlier this month.
Russia readies air defenses over Moscow, gives border town shelter maps ahead of New Year – Reuters