A Russian border region will evacuate 9,000 children from the area, claiming it is being continuously shelled by Ukraine.
The children are to be moved further east, away from the Ukraine border, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod border region, Vyacheslev Gladkov said.
The announcement came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Kremlin wants to create a buffer zone to help protect border regions from long-range Ukrainian strikes and cross-border raids.
Ukraine has increasingly used its long-range firepower to hit oil refineries and depots deep inside Russia and has sought to unsettle the Russian border regions, putting political pressure on Putin.
Three people were wounded in an attack on Tuesday in the Belgorod region, Mr Gladkov said, including a 14-year-old who had part of a limb amputated.
On Monday, four members of the same family died in an attack on the Belgorod village of Nikolskoe, according to Mr Gladkov.
Reuters has not been possible to independently verify either side’s battlefield claims.
Russia says it captured Ukrainian village in eastern Donetsk
Meanwhile, Russia says it has captured a village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured the village of Orlivka, about 9.5 kilometres from the Russian-controlled town of Avdiivka, on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian General Staff reported earlier on Tuesday its forces had repelled nine Russian army attacks in the vicinity of Orlivka.
On Monday, Russian attacks in Donetsk killed one person and wounded another, according to Ukrainian politician Vadym Filashkin.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia has launched 130 missiles of various types, more than 320 Shahed attack drones and almost 900 guided bombs on Ukraine so far this March.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday it had also carried out pre-emptive strikes against two groups of Ukrainian saboteurs near the border with Belgorod and Kursk regions.
In both cases, the saboteur groups were destroyed, the Defence Ministry said.
Russia’s new navy head revealed
Russia has introduced its new acting head of Navy, Admiral Alexander Moiseev, who was formally presented in his new role for the first time on Tuesday, state news outlet RIA reported.
Admiral Moiseev replaces Nikolai Yevmenov, and has been serving on nuclear submarines for more than 29 years.
The new Navy head has also been decorated a Hero of Russia, the country’s top military award.
He was appointed acting commander and then commander of the Black Sea Fleet in 2018 and then appointed commander of the Northern Fleet in 2019 before taking up his current role.
The change in top ranks comes as Ukraine continues to employ highly efficient attacks on Russia’s warships, including the April 2022 sinking of the Black Sea fleet’s flagship missile cruiser and a missile strike September last year on the fleet’s headquarters in the port of Sevastopol.
Although the Russian Defence Ministry has mostly kept quiet about Ukrainian attacks on its naval assets, Russian military bloggers and commentators have harshly criticised the Navy’s slow and sloppy response to the threat.
Bloggers reported head of the Black Sea fleet, Admiral Viktor Sokolov, was dismissed in February following the latest losses of warships, though there was no official confirmation of his ouster.
The strikes have also forced the Russian navy to take precautions that have affected its operations, including relocating some of its ships from ports in Crimea farther east to Novorossiysk to better protect them.
Reuters/AP