Residents of the Sudzha district of the Kursk region posted an internet video on Aug. 8 appealing to President Vladimir Putin for help evacuating civilians caught up in the fighting after Ukrainian forces crossed into the Russian mainland two days earlier.
The residents said that Russian propaganda media announcements that Kyiv’s forces had already been “completely defeated” were simply untrue. They said their homes were being destroyed, that they had received no instructions from the local authorities, there had been no organized evacuation, and that people were saving themselves as best they could.
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More than a month later their appeals had still not been met and they were unable to contact relatives in the areas where fighting was taking place. The only response that had come from Moscow was an offer of compensation to the value of 10,000 rubles ($110).
The Russian state news site Kommersant reported on Friday that residents had written a series of letters with a request to open a humanitarian corridor “for the evacuation of civilians” as soon as possible. The letters were sent to President Putin, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets.
The outlet quoted a spokesperson from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who said it had attempted to organize negotiations to create a humanitarian corridor with both sides in the war without success.
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It said that the volunteer organization “Lisa Alert” identified at least 700 residents of settlements within the Sudzha district including pensioners, families and priests were trapped in areas controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine but thought it likely, that the numbers involved were significantly higher.
On Sunday a Deputy from Russia’s State Duma, Dmitry Kuznetsov published a letter on Telegram that he had written to the President of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, with a further request to provide a humanitarian corridor for residents of the occupied territories of the Kursk region.
In it he said: “It is not up to me to decide, but if I was in the place of the Red Cross, I would have two options. The first would be a route through the front lines.”
His second choice, which may not go down too well in the Kremlin, would be to evacuate along with Red Cross guarantees to Ukraine, then Belarus and then home.
He then added, “Let them decide for themselves and carry out the task – just organize to save people, under their control and guarantees, the evacuation of our civilians deep into Ukraine, and then to Russia through a third country. This will have nothing to do with military action, and people will be saved.”
A copy of Kuznetsov’s Sept. 13 letter to the ICRC
According to Kommersant the population of the town of Sudzha on Jan. 1 was 4,941 with 24,336 people living in the wider district. Alexey Smirnov, head of the Kursk region claimed on Sept. 11, that more than 150,000 residents had been evacuated from border areas to “safe” Russian territory.
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