Belgorod Region's Acting Governor: Residents Most Want the War to End
Belgorod Region's acting governor Alexander Shuvaev said in an interview that local residents' top desire is for the war in Ukraine to end. Meanwhile, Yandex search data shows that queries about when the 'special military operation' will end hit a record high in late June.
Alexander Shuvaev, the acting governor of Russia's Belgorod region, stated in an interview with the Russian business daily Kommersant that the region's residents want the war in Ukraine to end more than anything else. When asked what the people of the region most desire at the moment, Shuvaev replied: "For the special military operation to end, so everybody — whoever they are — can get on with their lives and things in the region can get better. That is what matters most. There's no way forward otherwise."
Shuvaev, 45, a major general and decorated combat commander, previously served as deputy governor of the Irkutsk region before President Vladimir Putin appointed him acting governor of Belgorod in May, succeeding Vyacheslav Gladkov, who had led the region since 2021. Shuvaev himself fought in the war in Ukraine before entering regional government.
According to Yandex search data, in late June 2026, searches for "when will the SVO end" reached their highest point since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. During the week of June 22-28, users submitted more than 137,000 such queries. Nearly 13% of June's searches came from Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Herman Gref, the head of Sberbank, also recently said that Russians want the war to end. "What worries us — I think we all share the same worry," Gref said. "I don't think there is a person in this country whose concerns are anything other than the earliest possible end to the fighting. That is obvious."
