Civilians are also suffering on the Russian side in Putin’s war.
Now small town residents have joined forces in a call to the president:
– Protect us.
After crouching during heavy shelling three times in 48 hours, the inhabitants of the small Russian border town of Tyotkino are tired.
An open letter to President Putin circulating in the city for signature calls for the military to strike back, writes The Moscow Times.
“Recently, we have been living in constant fear. Why was Tyotkino subjected to shelling for 45 minutes on 19 May without retaliation? Why did about 100 grenades land on civilian homes and factories “, it says in the call published on a local news site.
Attack on distillery
The small town with just over 3,000 inhabitants in the Kursk region is only two kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
The number of attacks on targets on the Russian side of the border has increased since Russian troops changed strategy and gave up the idea of capturing Kyiv – and after successful Ukrainian counterattacks around Kharkiv, writes The Moscow Times.
Last week, a truck driver was killed in Tyotkino when he made a delivery to a local distillery.
He then became the second civilian casualty on the Russian side since Putin began his invasion.
At the same time, the Ukrainian governor of the Sumy region, across the border from Tyotkino, has stated that Ukrainian villages and small towns have been under constant shelling from the Russian side throughout the war.
The signatories of the call say, however, that they “understand the necessity” of attacking Ukraine – but feel vulnerable and helpless.
Interrogated by border guards
“We ask that border protection be increased, that some form of buffer zone be established on Ukrainian territory so that we can not be reached by shelling and can live, work and sleep safely at night,” it writes.
A woman in Tyotkino writes on the local news site that she was interrogated by border guards after signing and sending around the call.
If the civilian death toll is two, the number of Russian soldiers killed during the war is all the greater.
According to an estimate from Britain, a third of the original invasion force of about 150,000 men may have been lost. That number includes dead, injured and captured.
Russia has not updated its own figures on losses since March 25. It was then stated that 1,351 soldiers died and 3,825 were injured. Those figures were generally already considered to be really on the low side.
Soldiers in army pajamas
On Wednesday, President Putin met wounded soldiers for the first time since Russian troops entered Ukraine.
Wearing white coats, he and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu greeted soldiers being cared for at a military hospital in Moscow.
The soldiers were dressed in blue pajamas with the logo of the Russian army and shook hands with the president in front of the cameras, writes AFP.
In the coldly decorated rooms, Putin asked the soldiers how they were doing and chatted about their families.
However, he did not ask any of the soldiers about their experiences on the battlefield, writes the Telegraph.
The newspaper also writes that the soldiers are said to be cared for for shrapnel and gunshot wounds, but that none of those shown in the TV clip have any visible signs of that type of injury.
– The president’s schedule has now made it possible for him to get acquainted with their condition and, more importantly, talk to Russian soldiers, says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov according to the Russian news agency Tass.