Four years into its full-scale war in Ukraine, Russia is feeling the effects
The Russian authorities do not release casualty figures for the so-called "special military operation". But Russia is known to have suffered huge battlefield losses. So many of the towns and villages I've visited in the last two years have had museums and monuments dedicated to soldiers killed in Ukraine, as well as separate sections for recent war dead at local cemeteries."My friend's husband was killed fighting there. The son of my cousin, too. And grandson," says Irina, who has stopped to chat to me opposite 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 money is tight, Irina helps put together aid packages for Russian soldiers on the front line. She doesn't criticise the war on Ukraine. She is, though, 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 sometimes the front line feels much closer. This part of Russia, Lipetsk region, like many others, has been targeted by Ukrainian drones. Around Yelets the authorities have installed emergency shelters. I spot one at a bus stop, another 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 need for shelters, since there had been no drone attacks 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."
