June 25, 2024

An Everyday Emergency


An Everyday Emergency
Firefighters extinguish a house damaged by shelling in the Belgorod Oblast.
  Telegram channel of the governor of Belgorod Oblast.

Warnings about the threat of shelling or drone strikes have become daily occurrences since May 2024 in Russia's regions that border Ukraine, according to an analysis by the independent news publication Agentstvo.

In the Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, and Voronezh regions, the number of air raid warnings has been on the rise. In April, there were just 49 warnings; but in May, there were 160. By mid-June, there have already been 103. Most of these warnings were accompanied by sirens.

The number of days per month on which the alarm was sounded in at least one border region has also increased. There were eight and seven quiet days in April and March, respectively. In May and June, there was only one quiet day each month.

According to Agentstvo's research, the Belgorod region was the most targetted, with the governor warning of shelling 252 times in 3.5 months.

Other statistics also highlight Belgorod Oblast as a Russian region most affected by Russia's War on Ukraine. According to the local publication Fonar ("The Lantern"), more than 1,000 inhabitants of the region have been wounded by the war. In July 2023, Fonar reported that about 1,750 properties in the region had been destroyed beyond repair.

In 2023, the number of people leaving the region was 27 percent higher than in 2021. The war has also significantly impacted crime statistics in the region. In the first nine months of 2023, the number of crimes involving weapons increased 17-fold. Additionally, the number of crimes related to illegal weapons trafficking also rose significantly in 2023, with residents often finding weapons in the forest or purchasing them from the Russian military.

You Might Also Like

Ten Years of Russian Crimea
  • June 16, 2024

Ten Years of Russian Crimea

Russian state media outlet Izvestia is celebrating ten years since the Crimean annexation with a special feature that's pure propaganda.
Forced to Go Back to War
  • June 10, 2024

Forced to Go Back to War

Hundreds of Russian soldiers who left their service without permission are being held in military units, beaten, and then forcibly sent back to the front.
Make Fairy Tales, not War
  • June 05, 2024

Make Fairy Tales, not War

Russian authorities are spending more on the production of fantasy films than on war films, according to a recent study.
An Air Self Defense
  • March 27, 2024

An Air Self Defense

Some Russian companies are buying their own air defense systems.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Murder and the Muse

Murder and the Muse

KGB Chief Andropov has tapped Matyushkin to solve a brazen jewel heist from Picasso’s wife at the posh Metropole Hotel. But when the case bleeds over into murder, machinations, and international intrigue, not everyone is eager to see where the clues might lead.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
The Samovar Murders

The Samovar Murders

The murder of a poet is always more than a murder. When a famous writer is brutally stabbed on the campus of Moscow’s Lumumba University, the son of a recently deposed African president confesses, and the case assumes political implications that no one wants any part of.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Okudzhava Bilingual

Okudzhava Bilingual

Poems, songs and autobiographical sketches by Bulat Okudzhava, the king of the Russian bards. 
At the Circus (bilingual)

At the Circus (bilingual)

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955