Russian City Shares Map of Shelters Amid Attacks From Ukraine

A Russian city has published the locations of bomb shelters for citizens as anxiety over Ukrainian attacks increases in the country.

On Saturday, authorities in the Russian city of Belgorod shared images highlighting bomb shelters around the area. "Long weekend ahead," the post said, showing the locations of shelters "near popular vacation spots." Belgorod sits around 25 miles north of the Ukrainian border.

Also on Saturday, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that border villages in the region had been shelled by Ukrainian forces. Several buildings were damaged in the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, Gladkov said on Telegram, with five border settlements losing access to electricity.

Over the weekend, Russian authorities reported shelling in the Bryansk region, which also borders Ukraine. Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Saturday that two people had died in the Suzemka settlement after shelling hit the area, adding on Sunday that no further casualties were reported in a renewed wave of shelling.

Newsweek has reached out to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for comment via email.

Monday, May 1 marks Russia's Spring and Labor Day, followed by Victory Day on May 9. Each year, the Kremlin marks Victory Day with parades across the country, including in Moscow's Red Square, celebrating the Soviet triumph over Nazism in World War Two.

But authorities in Belgorod and in Kursk, another Russian border city, have already canceled celebrations on these two holidays – a decision also taken by authorities in the annexed Crimea peninsula to the south of mainland Ukraine, which Russia has controlled since 2014.

Sergey Aksyonov, who has acted as the head of the Moscow-installed authorities in Crimea since the annexation, said in mid-April that events for May 1 and May 9 had been canceled "due to security considerations."

"Despite the cancellation of festive events, our veterans will not be left without attention," Aksyonov wrote on Telegram on April 12. "Representatives of local authorities will definitely visit them and congratulate them on Victory Day."

Other Russian cities located further away from the country's border with Ukraine have said they will hold Victory Day celebrations, the British Defense Ministry noted on April 13. "The cancelled events have likely primarily been called off because of security concerns near the border, as officials have claimed," the ministry added.

However, the cancelation of some of the events shows "a sensitive communications challenge for the Kremlin," the government department wrote on Twitter.

Russian President Vladimir Putin situates the war in Ukraine in the context of the Soviet Union in the 1940s, the British Defense Ministry said, adding that "honouring the fallen of previous generations could easily blur into exposing the scope of the recent losses, which the Kremlin attempts to cover up."

On Saturday, a drone attack set fire to an oil storage facility in Sevastopol in the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, which was blamed on Ukraine by the Moscow-backed authorities. Sevastopol has previously been targeted by drone strikes.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea's main port city of Sevastopol, said on Telegram the fire covered around 1,000 square meters, and that one drone "was able to reach the oil reservoir" while another was shot down. No casualties were reported.

Razvozhayev later said the fire had been "completely extinguished."

On Sunday, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces described the atmosphere as "restless in temporarily occupied Sevastopol."

"Panic rumors spread in the city about the failure of Russian air defense to ensure the security of its own strategic objects," the General Staff wrote on Facebook.

"In turn, sensing the beginning of the so-called "hot resort season" in temporarily occupied Crimea, Russian soldiers began writing vacation reports indicating the locations of her spending in mainland Russia," the military command added.

In a previous post on Saturday, the General Staff said that in recent days Russian forces had increased the number of patrols and reinforced police presence in the peninsula.

On Saturday, without claiming responsibility, a representative of Ukraine's military intelligence agency said the fire in Sevastopol was "God's punishment, in particular for the killed civilians in Uman."

On Friday, a wave of Russian missile attacks targeted the central Ukrainian cities of Uman and Dnipro, killing 23 people.