Belgorod residents fear the Ukraine war but refuse to blame Putin

(BBC) ⸻ The sounds of war are becoming routine at a market a few miles inside Russia's border with Ukraine. Sandbags are stacked up outside some of the buildings and residents are living in fear of Ukrainian shelling. Raisa Alexandrovna, who sells sweets here, has lost her sense of security and blames the Kremlin for what has happened. She also mentions that it was their country that invaded Ukraine and that the minds of Ukrainians have been altered. In the city of Belgorod, a giant letter 'Z' - the symbol of Russia's military operation - has been erected along a busy highway. Shelters have been opened in cellars and in basements of apartment blocks. Belgorod is a city where most people don't blame the invasion itself for the deteriorating security situation. Instead, patriotic messaging feeds it, with portraits of decorated Russian soldiers and slogans encouraging the public to rally round the flag. On Russian state TV, news bulletins and talk shows assure viewers that Russia is in the right; that Ukraine and the West are the aggressors and that in this conflict the very future of Russia is at stake. The Kremlin paints the war in Ukraine in similar colours as World War Two, as Russia fighting fascism, battling to defend the Motherland from foreign invaders. However, the reality is very different, as in 1941 Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and in 2022 Vladimir Putin's Russia launched a full-scale military operation. In the wasteland outside Belgorod, Ukraine, a group of armed men are training a territorial defence force for Belgorod region. They call themselves "Smersh" ("Death to Spies") after a notorious counter-intelligence unit created by Joseph Stalin in World War Two. Among the men being trained is Evgeny Bakalo, a local writer and businessman who has set up a support group for Ukrainians who've crossed into Russia to escape the war. Mr Bakalo's opinion of Ukraine chimes with the controversial views of President Putin, who has portrayed Ukrainian officials as neo-Nazis and Western governments as Nazi sympathisers. Under President Putin, the national idea is constructed around World War Two - what most Russians refer to as the Great Patriotic War - and the enormous human cost of that victory.