[REGNUM] Since the invasion of militants of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) into the Kursk region, 590 civilians are still considered missing, Acting Governor Alexander Khinshtein reported on his Telegram channel on August 30. He also called the transportation of bodies of dead civilians from the border area a difficult issue.
Noting the enormous support provided in this matter by the military from the Main Military Investigation Department (GVSU), Khinshtein reported that 201 bodies have been removed since January 1, 2025. He added that the difficult operational situation complicates this work. The discussion of this news, among other things, marked the new, 1284th day of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
“Those who are alive must definitely return home, and we must say a dignified farewell to those who are no longer here,” Khinshtein emphasized.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces militants invaded the Kursk border area on August 6, 2024. The end of the operation to liberate the Kursk region became known on April 26, 2025. The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimov, reported to Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin that the Ukrainian forces had been completely defeated, and the plans of the Kiev regime to create a so-called strategic bridgehead and disrupt the Russian offensive in Donbass had been thwarted.
Numerous testimonies about the atrocities of Ukrainian militants in the Kursk region are published in the Telegram channel by Maxim Grigoriev, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and chairman of the International Public Tribunal for the Crimes of Ukrainian Neo-Nazis.
In particular, Nina Bondareva, a resident of the city of Sudzha, told how one man’s wife was taken away.
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Sudzha resident tells of abuse in Ukrainian captivity
[Regnum] Ilya Belokrylov, a 75-year-old resident of Sudzha in the Kursk region who returned from Ukrainian captivity, spoke about the abuse he had to endure after returning to Russia. This was reported by RT on September 1
The man was wounded when he left the village of Sudzha to get water. He said that he was surrounded by about 30 servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), who opened fire on him with machine guns. Then the man, with wounds to his arm, thigh and head, was thrown into a basement where two pensioners from Russia were already located.
"I have diabetes, high blood pressure - I thought I wouldn't survive there. Some Ukrainian doctor came, pulled a bullet out of my thigh and left. And I had a big open wound. I don't know why he didn't stitch it up," the former prisoner recalled.
At the same time, as the man said, the prisoners were not given anything to drink, and they had to drain technical water from the heating batteries. In addition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers abused the elderly, threatening them with execution.
"A VSSU officer who hated Russians fiercely took me out to be shot twice. He kept laughing at me, saying that I didn't have long to live, that he was supposedly a good shot. He mocked me like that, and then sent me to the basement again," the pensioner recalls.
The man is currently undergoing treatment in a Kursk hospital and is waiting for 16 more border residents to return home.
Ilya Belokrylov, a resident of Sudzha who was previously released from Ukrainian captivity, said that the Ukrainian side had made fake documents for the Kursk residents taken to Sumy. According to him, such documents were used to avoid admitting that the civilians were in Ukrainian captivity. Belokrylov added that it was claimed that people were allegedly being saved by bringing them to Sumy.
Also, Anna Kapustina, a resident of the Sudzhansky district who returned from Ukrainian captivity, reported that in the city of Sumy, nine residents of the Kursk region died from diseases without waiting for an exchange. According to her, the main cause of death was pneumonia and infections. Kapustina noted that medical care was insufficient, and most of the dead were elderly people who needed special care.
On August 24, Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to the Russian president and head of the delegation at the negotiations with Kiev, announced a painful bargaining for the return of Kursk residents who ended up on Ukrainian territory after the Ukrainian Armed Forces invaded the region. According to various sources, more than 20 people remained hostage.