Here, 6:02 pm
Nearly fifty residents of the Russian region of Kursk, partly occupied by Ukrainian troops, were able to return to Russia after rare negotiations with Ukraine, Moscow announced on Friday.
“Today, 46 residents of the Kursk region returned to Russia from Ukraine after negotiations with the Ukrainian side,” Russian human rights ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova announced on Telegram.
According to her, these people, including 12 children, had been taken by kyiv troops at the start of their offensive in the Kursk region, bordering Ukraine, last August.
AFP
Ukraine has not yet reacted to this announcement, nor explained why these civilians had been displaced.
On Telegram, the governor of Russia's Kursk region, Sergei Smirnov, explained that their return to Russia took place via Belarus.
According to him, these 46 inhabitants lived in the Sudja district, the main town conquered by the Ukrainian army in the Kursk region.
Only example of cooperation
This return is the result of “long” and “laborious” negotiations with kyiv, according to Governor Smirnov.
In the group are a three-year-old child, Darina, and her grandmother, Anastassia Gridina, the little girl's mother, told AFP.
“They are on their way, I will meet Darina in four hours,” said Ms. Gridina, who was in Moscow when the Ukrainian offensive began in the Kursk region.
At that time, the girl and her grandmother were in the village of Lebedevka, located very close to the border with Ukraine.
In October, Anastassia Gridina told AFP that she had written a letter to President Vladimir Putin for help and had even tried, in vain, to cross the front line.
Discussions on the return of civilians and the exchange of prisoners of war or bodies of killed soldiers are the only examples of cooperation and communication between the two sides.
Ukraine is demanding the return of nearly 20,000 minors “deported or forcibly displaced” in Russia since the start of its assault on February 24, 2022, a figure that many observers consider underestimated.
These accusations have been repeatedly rejected by the Russian authorities, who claim to protect the children from the fighting and say they are ready to hand the children over to their relatives in Ukraine if they request it.
Several returns of children from Russia have been organized for more than two years.
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