Vladimir Putin meets with Russia’s Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova at the Kremlin in Moscow, 10 June 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE / ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK/ KREMLIN POOL
Over 1,000 residents of Russia’s southwestern Kursk region have been forcibly removed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova told pro-Kremlin news outlet Argumenty i Fakty in an interview on Monday.
Moskalkova claimed that she had received over 1,000 messages from the relatives of people living in the Kursk region concerned about the whereabouts of their family members since the AFU began a military incursion into the Russian border region on 6 August.
“We know nothing about their fate. This is a gross violation of their rights and the international norms concerning the treatment of civilians,” she said. Novaya Gazeta Europe has been unable to independently verify her claims, however.
In total, according to Moskalkova, “12,328 residents, including 3,685 children, have been placed in temporary accommodation centres, medical and social institutions, and children’s camps on Russian territory,” citing figures from Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry.
Last month, Kursk residents signed a petition addressed to Vladimir Putin and the Russian Defence Ministry demanding that a safe corridor be created to allow civilians to evacuate areas of the region under Ukrainian occupation.
The Russian Red Cross has said that it has to date received over 5,000 requests for its staff to search for missing Kursk residents.
On Saturday Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had attempted to push back Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region but that Ukraine was “holding the defined lines”.
