Relatives of 68-year-old resident of the Belgorod region Viktor Viktorovich Laktionov live in Moscow. In the chat of Shebekins, they said that their grandfather is a bedridden invalid. After his nurse left the city due to Ukrainian shelling, he spent almost a day in the house alone without electricity and water.
Viktor Viktorovich is a veteran who fought in Afghanistan, received a concussion during the fighting, and his legs were paralyzed. His granddaughter Ksenia, in an interview with RT, recalls that, as far as she can remember, her grandfather has always been in a wheelchair.
"We now live in Moscow, and the last time I saw my grandfather was a long time ago, back in 2019. But this is our family, and leaving him there is not about us, "Ksenia explained.
Initially, the man's relatives appealed to concerned citizens with a request to at least go to their grandfather, feed and help charge the phone so that he could get in touch with his relatives.
A local resident, Svetlana, responded to the publication. She visited the pensioner and persuaded him to evacuate from the shelled city.
It is not so easy to organize the removal of a person with a disability from Shebekin now: there is a special entry regime in the city, the military does not allow cars to pass in order to secure the area. There are also not enough cars on which you can transport a bedridden patient. RT war correspondent Valentin Gorshenin went to evacuate Viktor Viktorovich.
Saving a Veteran
At the entrance to Shebekino there is a cluster of cars. The military stops cars and refuses to let them into the city, where explosions have been thundering for several days. In the distance, you can see the smoke from fresh arrivals. There are traces of destruction everywhere - shells hit private and apartment buildings, in many places the road was damaged.
"The worst thing is that they shoot at residential areas of the city. The fire from the Armed Forces of Ukraine is aimed at civilian - namely peaceful - infrastructure, multi-storey buildings and residential areas, "explains the military commander RT.
According to the journalist, they had to get to Shebekin by detours.
"When we arrived, Viktor Viktorovich was lying in bed. The man was in a helpless state: because of his illness, he could not leave the city himself, but even his own bed, "Gorshenin continues.
The volunteers had less than half an hour to gather the veteran on the road: because of the shelling, it is risky to stay in the car in one place in Shebekin. In such a short time, they needed to have time to collect clothes and medicines for the evacuee, let pets out into the street, if necessary, transplant a person into a wheelchair, and from it into a car.
After a short training camp, the group faced a problem: in the UAZ, on which military commander Valentin Gorshenin and volunteer Alexei from the team of State Duma deputy Pyotr Tolstoy arrived for Viktor Viktorovich, a wheelchair did not fit, it was also not possible to place a person lying down.
Fortunately, just when the team was solving the problem, an armored minibus of another volunteer group drove past Viktor Viktorovich's house - they took the pensioner with all his belongings.
New travel companions
Before leaving for Razumnoye, an RT correspondent met two more local residents who asked to be taken out of the city. The road from Shebekin to Razumne, where volunteers take evacuated local residents, usually takes about 25 minutes, but now you need to be extremely careful on this way because of the shelling.
"The road from Shebekin to Belgorod is also being shelled - almost every hour the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit the only transport artery connecting the city with the capital of the region. From this it follows that the Nazis want as many civilian casualties as possible, "says military commander Gorshenin.
Viktor Viktorovich and several other local residents who had evacuated from Shebekin were safely taken to Razumnoye. There, an ambulance was already waiting for the veteran, which took him to the temporary accommodation center. Relatives of the veteran confirmed to RT that the grandfather contacted them and everything is fine with him.
On June 2, the RT film crew managed to go to calls at two more addresses, at one of them a woman with an elderly disabled mother asked for help. The pensioner, however, did not dare to leave her home. The volunteers promised to visit the family on June 3.
"After that, we still drove around the city, picked up one local resident who wanted to evacuate. All this time, artillery shelling was conducted in the city: driving through the center, we saw that there was an arrival in one of the administrative buildings, we saw the burning windows of the first and second floors, black smoke was pouring out of there, "says Gorshenin.
Volunteer work
Local residents continue to leave Shebekin - volunteers receive applications every hour. In social networks, Shebekin residents publish requests for help with evacuation from the city, looking for drivers who can pick up the elderly and disabled.
Local authorities and volunteers explain that it is dangerous to take people out of the city centrally in large buses, since they become an easy target for the Ukrainian side. Therefore, volunteers like shuttles go back and forth and take people to buses that stand outside Shebekin. And from there, those who want to leave the city are taken to temporary accommodation centers.
Volunteers and local residents also tell RT that there are problems with the accommodation of evacuated Shebekin residents: there is no longer enough space for people in the TAC, and rented apartments in Belgorod are almost over.
RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan posted a post on her Telegram channel that she was ready to help the residents of Shebekin. In just one day, almost 1 thousand people responded to it. They also write from other regions of Russia, asking to find their relatives in Shebekin and take them to a safe place.