Fighting in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region. Photo: EPA-EFE / RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has warned that Ukraine must be ready to receive refugees from Russia’s Kursk region should the humanitarian situation there worsen as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in border districts continued on Thursday.
Vereshchuk announced the launch of a telephone hotline for Kursk region residents “needing humanitarian assistance or wanting to evacuate to Ukraine”, and stressed that Ukraine would comply “with all norms of international humanitarian law”.
Seeking to assure Russian civilians in the areas under Ukrainian control that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) would ensure their safety, Vereshchuk said that humanitarian corridors would be provided to evacuate residents to either Russia or Ukraine. International humanitarian organisations would also be granted access to occupied areas to monitor the situation, she added.
Vereshchuk described the aim of the AFU’s incursion into the Kursk region as being to create a “security zone” that would allow Ukraine to more effectively defend its own border regions, particularly the northeastern Sumy region, which has come under almost daily shelling since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two and a half years ago.
Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko echoed Vereshchuk’s remarks, calling the AFU’s establishment of a “buffer zone” in the Kursk region “a step to protect our border communities from daily enemy shelling”.
Civilians in the affected areas of the Kursk region had been “abandoned by Russia without the most basic necessities”, Klymenko said, adding that the AFU was reporting civilian needs to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry to act on.
On Thursday, acting Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov announced the “mandatory evacuation” of the region’s Glushkovsky district, which borders Ukraine, the first time the regional authorities have specified that an evacuation order is not optional.
Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said on Wednesday evening that most residents of Kursk region districts bordering Ukraine were “temporarily resettled and safe”, adding that over 8,000 people had been rehoused at 143 facilities in 11 different Russian regions.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian news channel TSN reported live from the Kursk region town of Sudzha, which has been the focus of intense clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces over the past week, interviewing residents it said had been “abandoned” by the Russian government and forced to shelter in basements as the Russian military shelled the town in its attempts to push back the AFU.
