The pleas of Russian civilians trapped after the Ukrainian army’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk province are facing Vladimir Putin faced with a new dilemma: maintain their counteroffensive The Russian authorities have agreed to either give Kiev time to hold on to its territory or give Kiev precious time to hold on to its territory in exchange for evacuating its citizens. Relatives of hundreds of civilians left behind in the Sudzha district have written a letter to the presidents of Russia, Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as to the ombudsmen of both countries, Tatiana Moskalkova and Dmytro Lubinets, demanding the creation of a humanitarian corridor so that they can safely leave the occupied zone. According to the NGO for the search for missing persons Liza Alert, at least 698 citizens remain in the occupied zone, although Russian media put the number of people trapped in Kursk in the thousands.
“The Russian army launched an attack on Sudzha on September 11. If the Ukrainian armed forces decide to defend themselves in the city, the chances of survival for civilians are minimal,” the families claim in the letter. They also point out that people trapped at the front are often very vulnerable: “Most of them are elderly people who did not have time to leave.”
The signatories also emphasize that humanitarian law is one of the first casualties of war. “The population of a besieged city must not be subjected to bombing or direct attacks. However, we understand that in urban combat, with the use of artillery and aerial bombs, this is impossible,” the relatives point out in the letter published by the Russian newspaper. Novaya Gazeta.
His statement refutes precisely one of the Kremlin’s accusations against kyiv. at the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, when Moscow and its propaganda criticized the Ukrainian armed forces to barricade themselves in their citiessuch as Severodonetsk or Mariupol, and not go out to fight in the open against the enemy’s military superiority.
The 90 families who signed the letter are calling on kyiv and Moscow to fulfil their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and to negotiate a way out for the people trapped on the Kursk front. These international agreements prohibit the use of civilians as human shields and oblige the parties to any conflict to protect the inhabitants of the occupied zones.
Relatives also recall that Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk said on August 15 that kyiv was ready to open the humanitarian corridor if Moscow also accepted this initiative. However, there was no response to this initiative or to the proposals of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
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“We have been calling on both sides to organise the safe passage of civilians since the beginning of August and have offered our services to deliver aid,” a source from the organisation confirmed to this newspaper.
Although the open letter to Zelensky and Putin mentions at least 698 missing people in the Sudzha district, relatives suspect that there may be “many more.” The governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said on Wednesday, September 11, that more than 150,000 inhabitants of the province have been “resettled to safe areas.”
