Russia starts charging scared parents £30 to evacuate children from Belgorod
Scared and furious Russian parents living in areas bordering Ukraine are fuming after it emerged that local authorities are going to charge them around £30 to evacuate their children.
Russian social media channels have been filled with angry parents complaining about the shocking decision to bill them for evacuation – despite it being free right up until moments before their children were seen getting on buses.
According to anti-Kremlin Russian Telegram channel We Can Explain, authorities in Shebekino, a Russian town just a nine minute drive from the border crossing point into Ukraine, were being told they had to shell out 3,000 rubbles (around £30) to have their children taken to a safer place in the Voronezh region.
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Shebekino is part of the Belgorod Oblast, which has become a site of fierce drone strike battles in recent days as Ukraine has begun taking the battle into Russian territory for the first time.
This saw residents of Shebekino take to Russian social media website VK to complain to the head of the administration of the Shebekinsky urban district Vladimir Zhdanov.
One parent, who did pay the money, wrote: “Thank God I sent my kids to a camp in the Voronezh region yesterday. What it took to get on that list.
“They promised everything would be free, and at the last moment they said that they had to pay extra for the fare.
“And so for two, six thousand rubles had to be paid – I had to lay out the last thing that happened.”
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However, an official replied with a reason that appears to made absolutely no sense.
They said: “such a decision was made in order not to take children on a school bus for a long distance”.
And another comment, allegedly from Zhdanov, disputed the claims and said that no parents were being charged money to have their children taken to safety.
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