RUSSIA – On Sunday, photographer and social activist Oleg Pogozhikh went to work at his studio in Kursk, western Russia, to the roar of explosions. Sitting on the border, the Kursk region came under occasional bombardment early on in the full-scale war with Ukraine. Fighting intensified in August last year, when Ukraine launched a daring incursion into the area, capturing several settlements. Russia has since retaken much of the territory seized.

“Everything is as usual: missile warning sirens, explosions somewhere nearby,” Pogozhikh wrote on his Telegram feed, titled Eye of Kursk. “Today it is especially loud. I am in the studio, and a couple of times I was shaken so much that it blocked out my ears. Close. So close that the question arises: what is the enemy trying to achieve? Of course, their goal is to spoil the holiday season, sow panic, distract attention.” At about nine that morning, Ukrainian forces mounted their renewed push, advancing from their occupied territory of Sudzha towards the villages of Berdin and Bolshoye Soldatskoye on the way to the city of Kursk.

“Events began to occur earlier, namely after midnight,” Yan Furtsev, a local official with Russia’s liberal opposition party Yabloko, told Al Jazeera. “Missile threat warnings began sounding, explosions were heard on the streets of Kursk, which were the result of the operation of anti-missile defence systems. But the frequency of explosions on this night was higher than on previous January nights and even in December. Almost 16 missile alerts and one warning about a drone attack were heard in almost 24 hours.” (Aljazeera)