Residents of Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, where Ukraine’s month-long incursion continues, have signed a petition demanding that a safe corridor be created to allow civilians to evacuate from areas under Ukrainian occupation, Russian independent media outlet 7x7 reported on Thursday.
Addressed to Vladimir Putin and the Russian Defence Ministry, the petition, which was posted on Wednesday on Russian social media network VK, was signed by nearly 1,000 people in its first 24 hours online a day.
Dana Sapralieva, who started the petition, said that since the Ukrainian incursion began a month ago, she had been unable to make contact with relatives in the village of Guevo, which is currently controlled by Ukrainian forces. She also named a further six villages in the occupied area which, in her words, “remain cut off from the Russian world”.
Noting that those who had remained in Ukrainian-occupied settlements had been left to their own devices without electricity, gas, water, or medicine, Sapralieva implored the Russian authorities not to abandon those who had “made their choice in your favour”.
“This is a cry for help from your people!” the petition read, “Please make your choice in favour of the people!”
The petition comes a day after the Russian nonprofit search-and-rescue group Liza Alert reported that nearly 700 residents in the Kursk region remain missing a month into Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the region.
In an interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky indicated that Ukraine planned to hold on to the territory it has occupied so far in Russia’s Kursk region, in order to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table.
“We don’t need their land. We don’t want to bring our Ukrainian way of life there,” Zelensky said, adding that the occupation of Russian territory was part of a “victory plan”, and that Kyiv had no intention of annexing the occupied territories.