Residents of the border area of Russia’s southwestern Kursk region displaced by the Ukrainian occupation have staged a protest in the regional capital Kursk, demanding that they be acknowledged as victims of war and that their grievances be listened to, independent news channel 7x7 reported on Sunday.
Video footage published by 7x7 showed several dozen protesters gathering on Kursk’s main square on Sunday afternoon, and a regional official for local affairs, Anatoly Drogan, demanding they disperse.
“This is an illegal action. We are living under counter-terrorism regulations,” Drogan said of the protest, adding that the Russian military had not yet pushed back the occupying Ukrainian troops to the border.
“We don’t care where we freeze. … We’re still not at home,” one woman can be heard telling Drogan, who advised them to lodge a formal complaint with the local authorities, which they refused to do.
According to the protesters, when Ukraine launched its surprise incursion into Russian territory in August, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) were met at the border by “conscripts with machine guns”. They also demanded the punishment of the Russian generals in charge of defending the region, rather than the inexperienced conscripts themselves.
Despite repeated assurances by Vladimir Putin that young recruits doing their mandatory military service would not be sent to the front lines since mobilisation was declared in September 2022, many of those captured and killed in the AFU incursion so far have been conscripts.
Meanwhile, the Russian military is said to have transferred 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops who joined Russia’s war effort last month, in preparation for a counteroffensive to recapture the Russian territory seized by Ukraine, according to unnamed US and Ukrainian officials who spoke to The New York Times.