(Moscow) An official from the Russian region of Kursk told AFP on Thursday that the authorities were carrying out “constant work” for the return of Russian civilians in the part occupied by Ukrainian troops, and whose fate has sparked a rare mobilization.
Posted at 9:23 a.m.
Since an offensive in August 2024, the Kyiv army has occupied several hundred km2 in this region bordering Ukraine. A territory that could serve as a bargaining chip in the event of peace negotiations with Moscow.
Hundreds of Russian civilians, taken by surprise by this offensive which surprised even the Kremlin, did not have time to evacuate and are still in the area near the fighting, cut off from their families and the rest of the population. Russia.
Some of their relatives have mobilized in recent weeks and publicly criticized the work of the authorities, something rare and risky in Russia.
National and local authorities “are carrying out constant work to achieve concrete results in the search and return of residents of the Kursk region, with whom their relatives have lost contact,” said a spokesperson for the Kursk administration. this region, Mikhail Choumakov, responding to a request from AFP.
This work is carried out with the “Russian Red Cross, volunteers and human rights defenders”, he added, in a letter dated Tuesday.
It followed a request for comments made by AFP concerning the statements of Lyubov Prilutskaïa, a Russian looking for her parents who accused the authorities of doing “nothing” to find them.
Expressing her “immense anger”, she told AFP that she had not heard from her parents, residents of a village in the Kursk region, since August.
-Remarks of rare virulence in Russia, where thousands of people have been prosecuted for having criticized the Russian government or the Russian army.
Lyubov Prilutskaïa criticized in particular a list of 517 people missing in the region, published by the Russian human rights ombudsman, Tatiana Moskalkova.
Mikhail Shumakov told AFP that this list of 517 names “was established according to requests” from their relatives and “was not complete”.
Lyubov Prilutskaya is also one of the leaders of an online protest campaign calling on Russia and Ukraine to “save” citizens stuck in the occupied zone.
Since last week, Internet users have reshared this message, accompanied by photos of their missing loved ones.
Nearly 3,000 civilians are under occupation in the district of Sudja, a town occupied by Ukraine, according to the authors of the message.
The spokesperson for the command of the Ukrainian forces in the region, Oleksiï Dmytrachkivsky, estimated their number to AFP at 2,000, stressing that the fighting makes any census difficult.
