Russians Outraged as Video Shows Artillery Open Fire from Busy Road

A video circulating on social media shows Russian soldiers opening fire with a multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) from a busy road in the Belgorod region near to the Ukrainian border, while motorists look on.

The footage, published Wednesday, shows civilian cars waiting in the Belgorod region for a Russian BM-21 Grad MLRS to finish attacking Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Independent Russian publication Important Stories said it geolocated the video to a road near the town of Shebekino, and noted that the direction of fire corresponds to territory in the north of the Kharkiv region, west of the city Volchansk, where Russian troops have been focusing their efforts in the past week.

The Belgorod region is located near the Ukrainian border and houses several Russian military bases and training grounds. The region has been rocked by explosions throughout Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, as the war spills across the border. The area is used by Moscow's forces to launch attacks on Ukraine.

Newsweek has contacted Russia's defense ministry for comment by email.

Publication of the footage has drawn mixed reactions from Russians on social media. Some accused Moscow forces of endangering the lives of civilians by firing at such close proximity, while others condemned residents for potentially exposing the positions of Russian artillery.

"The Russian military fired from the Grad MLRS right on the roadway among civilian cars," the Moscow Telegraph, a news channel covering the Moscow region, said on its Telegram channel. "The soldiers simply stood on the road in the Belgorod region, creating a traffic jam, and opened fire in the Kharkiv region."

The channel added: "What kind of idiots do you have to be to stupidly endanger civilians like that?"

The Govorit NeMoskva Telegram channel, which has over 40,000 subscribers, suggested that Russian civilians were used as a human shield.

"Human shield: the Grad missile system fired from a traffic jam of civilian cars near Belgorod," the channel said, sharing the footage.

On Russian social media platform VKontakte, some users expressed concerns about civilian safety.

"But nothing will fly back to civilian vehicles?" one user said.

Ukrainian blogger Denys Kazanskyi also weighed in on the matter on X, formerly known as Twitter, and accused Russian soldiers of "hiding behind the civilian population."

Moscow's forces were "trying to provoke return fire," he wrote on Thursday.

One X user said it's a "human shield tactic," adding: "Then they will cry that Ukrainians are killing civilians."

"Obviously done to make the possible "return fire" hit the civilian road in an attempt to escalate the war," another added.

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