Yelets looks like it stepped straight out of a Russian fairy tale. Golden Orthodox domes catch the winter light. Below them, ice fishermen dot the frozen river in perfect solitude. It’s the kind of place that makes you want to pause and breathe.
Then you notice the recruitment billboard.
It’s offering the equivalent of £15,000 to anyone willing to sign up and fight in Ukraine. Next to it, a poster shows a Russian soldier aiming a Kalashnikov. “We’re there where we need to be,” it says.
This town, sitting 350 kilometers south of Moscow in Lipetsk region, is caught between two worlds. One moment it feels peaceful. The next, the weight of four years of war crashes down on you.
The Cost Nobody Talks About
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022. Moscow expected a quick victory. Four years later, the war has outlasted Nazi Germany’s assault on the Soviet Union. Let that sink in.
A giant mural on a nine-storey apartment block tells part of the story. Five faces stare out at the street. Local men. All killed in Ukraine. “Glory to the heroes of Russia!” is painted above them.
Irina stops to talk while passing the mural. She works as a ticket collector at the bus station, barely scraping by. But she knows the toll personally.
“My friend’s husband was killed fighting there. The son of my cousin, too. And grandson,” she says quietly. “Lots of people have been killed. I feel sorry for these lads.”
What strikes you most about Irina is her confusion. She helps pack aid for soldiers on the front line. She doesn’t criticize the war. But she’s genuinely puzzled by it.
“In the Great Patriotic War, we knew what we were fighting for,” she explains. “I’m not sure what we’re fighting for now.”
When Sirens Replace Silence
The Ukrainian border is 250 kilometers away. It doesn’t feel that distant when you’re living with weekly drone attacks.
Emergency shelters now dot Yelets like concrete monuments to conflict. One sits by a bus stop. Another in a park. Before the invasion, they wouldn’t have existed. There was no reason for them.
Every apartment block has designated shelters in basements too.
“The sirens go off almost every night,” Irina says. “But I don’t leave my building. We just go into the corridor where there are no windows.”
It’s become routine. Mundane, even. That might be the most unsettling part. War sounds normal now.
Even a pancake cafe has jumped on the messaging, featuring the Latin letters V and Z (symbols of the “special military operation”) in its name. “Grab a pancake, then the whole world,” the sign reads.
The slogan echoes something Putin once said: “Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that’s ours.” It’s the kind of ambition that requires constant feeding with resources and lives.
The Hidden Price of War
Business as usual doesn’t exist anymore in towns like Yelets. The government raised VAT from 20 percent to 22 percent. They say the extra revenue goes to “defence and security.” That’s one way to put it.
Anastasiya Bykova runs a bakery where the smell of fresh raisin bread and cream pastries usually makes everything feel right. But even her small business can’t escape the squeeze.
“We’ve had to raise prices because our utility bills, rent and tax bills have all gone up,” she says. “The VAT increase means our ingredients are more expensive. Imagine we all have to shut down: our bakery, and the restaurant opposite. We try to make our town look good. But if we close, what’s left? Just a dark grey patch.”
State TV has been working hard to make people accept it all. Anchor Dmitry Kiselev told viewers they should understand the burden. “We live in a time of war: a war forced on us by the West. We have to win it, and we can’t get by without a war budget.”
The narrative is tight. Accept the sacrifice or be blamed for weakness.
The Resignation Sets In
Ivan Pavlovich is a pensioner living in Lipetsk, the regional capital. He’s more concerned right now about a leaking pipe in his apartment stairwell than geopolitics. There’s ice on the wall. The lift doesn’t work. Nobody’s fixing it.
He’s furious about that. He’s also frustrated about prices that keep climbing faster than pensions ever could.
“If I was younger, I’d go and fight there,” he tells me. “The special military operation is excellent. It’s just that prices keep rising. Pensions go up, but then prices go up even more. So what do I gain? Nothing.”
It’s a strange contradiction. Support for the war and frustration with its consequences living side by side in the same sentence.
Then he catches himself. “Of course, we’d live more comfortably if there was no special operation. They spend a lot of money on it. But we need to help. I’m not complaining.”
He is complaining. But he’s also accepting. That’s where most Russians seem to be right now.
Waiting for Something to Change
In remote villages across Russia’s Far East, almost all the fighting-age men have left to join the war effort. Towns like Yelets have entire sections of cemeteries dedicated to recent war dead. Museums and monuments keep multiplying.
Few people believe they have any power to change what’s happening. The resignation is almost palpable. People aren’t optimistic. They’re just hunkering down, waiting, hoping that better times come eventually.
Life has become about surviving the present rather than imagining the future. The fairy tale beauty of a Russian winter still exists in Yelets, but it’s hard to enjoy it when sirens wail through the night and recruitment billboards promise cash for your life.
What happens when a entire generation grows up knowing nothing but this?
