Thousands of inhabitants from the city of Shebekino, a city of 40,000 in Russia's Belgorod region located near the Ukrainian border, flee to the regional capital following artillery fire of unprecedented intensity. "We left Shebekino because we were shelled so hard that the windows shattered," Antonina Zaikina, 75, whose bags had been packed since the first day of Russia's full-scale offensive in Ukraine, tells AFP. The conflict now fully affects certain Russian border regions, above all Belgorod, which in recent weeks saw an extraordinary incursion by armed groups claiming to be Russians fighting for Kyiv (though the Ukrainian authorities deny responsibility). IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES