Ukraine crisis forces some Russians to work, study from home again

FILE PHOTO - A general view of a multi-story residential building, which was damaged by shelling from Ukrainian armed forces, according the region's governor, in Belgorod, Russia October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Stringer

LONDON (Reuters) - People in Russia's Belgorod region were being asked to work and study from home again on Friday - this time not because of the coronavirus pandemic but because of the eight-month-old war in neighbouring Ukraine.

When President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday imposed martial law on four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine in response to battlefield reverses, he also placed several Russian border regions including Belgorod on a "medium alert", bringing the war closer to home for millions of ordinary Russians.