Photo: vvgladkov /Telegram

Russia’s southwestern Belgorod region, which borders both Ukraine and Russia’s Kursk region, has declared a federal state of emergency on Thursday, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced in a video message on Thursday.

Belgorod joins the neighbouring Kursk region, where fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has been concentrated over much of the past week, in introducing the measure, an apparent indicator that the ongoing incursion into Russian territory carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has not been stopped in its tracks, as the Kremlin has repeated claimed.

Under the state of emergency, residents of the region affected by the fighting are eligible to receive financial aid from the federal government, including a one-off payment of 15,000 rubles (€150), and payments of between 75,000–150,000 rubles (€760–€1,530) for the destruction of private property, while the families of civilians killed in fighting are eligible for compensation of 1.5 million rubles (€15,350).

The decision to introduce the federal state of emergency in Belgorod was taken by a government commission headed by Ministers of Emergency Situations Alexander Kurenkov, who said that measure had been taken in view of the rising number of dead and injured residents, as well as damaged residential buildings and infrastructure, which the committee agreed required a federal-level response.

At least four people were injured overnight Wednesday in Ukrainian drone strikes on the Belgorod region town of Shebekino, Gladkov said on Thursday morning.