Photo: Vyacheslav Gladkov’s Telegram channel

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov of Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, accused locals on Sunday of deliberately leaving old cars exposed on the streets in the hope of receiving compensation payments if they were struck by drones or incoming artillery fire, independent news channel 7x7 has reported.

Gladkov told a government meeting that locals had started “forming groups… and trying to get state aid they aren’t entitled to,” claiming he heard some residents say: “Our village is coming under fire. Let’s get the car out of the garage. If it gets hit, at least we’ll get money.”

There were also cases of Belgorod region residents “demanding resettlement” due to the proximity of incoming fire, in the hope of being moved to new housing at the state’s expense, Gladkov continued.

In February, Gladkov said that in the three years of war with Ukraine, 13,900 cars in the region had been damaged, which the authorities had spent 2.5 billion rubles (€27.8 million) in compensation payments on.

Local Telegram channel Pepel said last month that at least 1,432 Belgorod region natives had been killed since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while a further 185 servicemen were listed as missing.

Belgorod was the first Russian region to see persistent retaliation from the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the war, with the neighbouring Kursk region then suffering more serious repercussions when the AFU launched an incursion there in August, though the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had been able to fully drive out all remaining Ukrainian servicemen last month.