Residents of the tiny village of Dniprovske near Ukraine’s border with Belarus feel betrayed by their neighbors.
Belarus, a key Russian ally, continues to allow Moscow to launch missile and rocket attacks on Ukraine from its territory.
“We expected such an attack from Putin ... but we did not expect this from the Belarusians,†40-year-old Svitlana Slyvka told CNN.
“This is treason. We are relatives, we are neighbors. ... It's a stab in the back that no one expected. They are worse than Russia.â€
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko remains one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies and has played a significant role in the invasion of Ukraine.
He allowed Russian troops to cross the Belarusian border into Ukraine at the start of the conflict.
Ukrainian border guard Andrii Kazatskiy said the local residents can hear the missiles coming from Belarus. "[They] can hear not only how the missiles were launched, but also how they flew by,†he told CNN.
Russian officials say their air defense systems repelled another attempt by the Ukrainian military to strike the Antonovsky bridge, a key structure that crosses the Dnieper river into the occupied city of Kherson.
“There were no strikes on the bridge. There were attempts, but everything was repelled by the air defense system. Nothing flew on the bridge at all, these are all fakes,†Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the region’s civil military administration, told Russian state news agency TASS.
Ukraine has been conducting strikes on bridges in the area for several weeks now, hoping to cut off supplies to Russian troops in Kherson ahead of an announced counteroffensive.
Traffic across the Antonovsky bridge was stopped altogether on July 27, according to TASS.
Over the past week, Russian state media and social media footage showed Moscow’s forces transporting people across the Dnieper river in makeshift pontoon ferries, circumventing the disabled bridges.
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