Putin: the Ministry of Defense’s business is to “eliminate the possibility of shelling”

Russian President Vladimir Putin called the “priority task” facing the Russian military department to eliminate the “most possible shelling” of Russia’s border territories. He announced this on Wednesday at a meeting in video format dedicated to the restoration of infrastructure. He defined the topic of the meeting as “support for the residents of Crimea, Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions”, whose houses and apartments, according to Putin, “were damaged or destroyed due to shelling by neo-Nazis (this is how the Russian authorities often call the forces of defense of Ukraine – RS)”.

Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said at the meeting that residents of the districts bordering Ukraine must be resettled. His words are quoted by TASS. As Khusnullin said, 9.4 billion rubles are needed to resettle residents of Belgorod, Kursk, and Bryansk regions.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russian border territories have repeatedly been attacked by Ukraine, as their authorities have claimed; The Ukrainian side did not officially comment on these messages. There were reports of killed and wounded civilians, as well as destroyed or damaged houses; the inhabitants of several settlements had to be resettled. It is not clear why Putin mentioned the annexed Crimea, which is now far from the front line and where there were almost no such incidents.

As Putin said at the meeting, many people in the border regions “have been left homeless, forced to move to relatives or to temporary places of residence, faced interruptions in the supply of water, heat, and electricity.” Putin did not say how many people he was talking about. He called to restore houses or compensate for their cost, to restore infrastructure. At the same time, he did not give security guarantees, sent it to the Ministry of Defense, and did not comment on Khusnullin’s proposal for resettlement either.

Official Russia, in addition to Crimea, also considers four regions of Ukraine partially occupied after February 24, 2022 as its territories. Putin only briefly mentioned assistance to the residents of these regions, many of which were destroyed during the Russian army’s offensive, and he mentioned as one of the possible measures the provision of preferential mortgages at a rate of two percent per annum.

Before Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2014, there were no shelling or other security-related incidents in the border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions.