Evacuated civilians from Russia’s Kursk border region wait for aid at a Russian Red Cross office in central Kursk, 17 August 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / STRINGER
The Russian Red Cross has received over 1,500 enquiries about people who have gone missing in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region amid the continuing Armed Forces of Ukraine incursion into Russian territory, business daily Vedomosti reported on Monday.
A spokesperson from the Russian Red Cross told the newspaper that of the 1,500 people reported as missing to the organisation between 11–19 August, just 100 had so far been found alive. However, they also noted that the number of reports was not necessarily an accurate indication of how many people were missing in total, as many enquiries could relate to a single individual.
The nonprofit organisation Liza Alert, which searches for those who have gone missing, said that it had so far received 779 requests for help finding missing people from the Kursk region since the Ukraine offensive began two weeks ago. Of those, some 111 cases were closed after the missing people were located, a representative of the organisation said.
On Thursday, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office blocked a page called Sudzha — Search for People on Russia’s most popular social network VK. Earlier, the Kursk authorities had “strongly recommended” residents not to post personal information about missing people on social media, warning that it could be used by Ukrainian psyops groups.
On Friday, Liza Alert announced that it would be deleting all posts about missing civilians in the Kursk region on its website due to increasing cases of fraud.
