The Russian authorities don’t launch casualty figures for the so-called “special military operation”. But Russia is identified to have suffered large battlefield losses. So a lot of the cities and villages I’ve visited in the final two years have had museums and monuments devoted to troopers killed in Ukraine, in addition to separate sections for latest war useless at native cemeteries.
“My friend’s husband was killed fighting there. The son of my cousin, too. And grandson,” says Irina, who has stopped to speak to me reverse the mural.
“Lots of people have been killed. I feel sorry for these lads.”
Irina is a ticket collector at the bus station. She struggles to make ends meet.
“Utility bills are suffocating us. Prices are crushing us. It’s very hard to get by.”
Although cash is tight, Irina helps put collectively help packages for Russian troopers on the entrance line. She does not criticise the war on Ukraine. She is, although, confused by it.
“In the Great Patriotic war, we knew what we were fighting for,” Irina says. “I’m not sure what we’re fighting for now.”
The border with Ukraine is 250km away. But typically the entrance line feels a lot nearer. This a part of Russia, Lipetsk area, like many others, has been focused by Ukrainian drones. Around Yelets the authorities have put in emergency shelters. I spot one at a bus cease, one other in a park.
These concrete constructions stand like monuments to President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation”. Before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine there had been no want for shelters, since there had been no drone assaults on Russia.
Blocks of flats in Yelets have designated shelters, too, in basements.
“The sirens go off almost every night,” Irina explains. “But I don’t leave my building. We just go into the corridor where there are no windows.”
