RUSSIANS have been frantically fleeing from the city of Belgorod after multiple strikes have reportedly hit the area.
A foreign policy expert, based in Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv, shared a video that appeared to show hundreds of people – some with suitcases – trying to leave the city.
He wrote: “Russians are fleeing Belgorod as explosions rock the city and air defence activity lights up the sky…”
A video from the scene was also shared by a Ukrainian-born former race car driver.
Writing on Twitter, Igor Sushko said: “Belgorod is located 25 miles from the border with #Ukraine.
“The population is frantically trying to flee to inland Russia after multiple reported strikes.
“Putin is an idiot. History books will place the responsibility for the demise of Russia squarely on him.”
He later posted a video that appeared to show a missile hitting the area.
Alongside the video, he wrote: “One such strike in #Belgorod was caught on camera.
“You can also hear helicopters.”
“Cameras near the city’s airport also recorded bright flashes in the sky. Around the same time, videos and photographs of giant queues at the railway station began to appear”, Sota’s channel said.
Sota claimed that “local and, apparently, pro-government telegram channels immediately tried to refute the connection between these events, writing that the last train left at 22:10, and the ‘claps’ were later”, but the railway station’s website shows trains run later than they reported.
City and regional authorities have not yet commented on the incident.
It comes less than two weeks after a huge fire broke out at an arms storage depot in Belgorod.
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Locals of two Russian villages in the Belgorod region, Timxonovo and Soloti, fled the area after the incident on August 18.
They were taken to a safe distance by the district head, the governor said in a Telegram message at the time.
No casualties were reported in the blaze, said Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod.
