Ukraine and Russia agree on return of 46 Kursk residents after rare talks

Dozens of residents from Russia’s Kursk border region have been returned from Ukraine following rare and “painstaking” negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, Moscow said on Friday.

In August, Ukraine conducted a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, marking its first operation on Russian soil since Moscow’s invasion began in February 2022, and capturing several settlements. Despite this, Russia has continued its gradual but persistent advance across eastern Ukraine, taking control of village after village as it aims to seize the entire industrialized Donbas region

The reasons for the residents’ transport into Ukraine remain unclear, and Kyiv has not provided any immediate comment.

“Today, 46 residents of the Kursk region returned to Russia from Ukraine as a result of a negotiation process with the Ukrainian side,” Russian human rights ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova said.

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The residents were all from the Sudzhansky district, home to the border town of Sudzha which Ukraine captured shortly after launching its offensive, according to local governor Alexei Smirnov.

“The painstaking and lengthy negotiations to return our fellow countrymen to their homeland have brought results,” he said on Telegram.

The residents included 12 children and were returned via Belarus, with all of them being given “all necessary assistance”, he added.

One of the children being returned in the deal was three-year-old Darina, her mother, Anastasia Gridina, told AFP.

“They are already on the way. In four hours I will meet Darina,” she said.

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Gridina had gone to Moscow for temporary work, leaving her daughter with her grandmother in the Kursk region village of Lebedevka when Ukraine launched its shock offensive.

In October she told AFP she had been pleading for help “everywhere,” even writing a personal letter to President Vladimir Putin.

At one point she tried to cross the front line herself, but was forced to turn back.

The limited return of civilians, as well as exchanges of captured soldiers and bodies of killed fighters, have become the only areas of cooperation between the two sides, which have been fighting since Moscow launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.

With inputs from agencies.