Russia on Wednesday said that 288 civilians were killed during Ukraine’s months-long incursion into the Kursk region, which Moscow claimed to have fully cleared of Kyiv’s forces over the weekend.
Kyiv sent its troops across the border in August 2024 as a riposte to Moscow’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine.
The Kremlin said in recent days that it had, with the help of North Korean troops, ousted Ukrainian troops from the western border region, while Kyiv said it is still fighting in Kursk.
“According to the data of the health ministry of Russia, since August, the health of 791 people was damaged, of which 288 were killed,” the governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinstein, said on social media.
He added that the authorities were far from recovering all the bodies of killed civilians from the border areas.
Khinstein gave no details on how the civilians died.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to punish any Ukrainian troops taken captive in the Kursk region and treat them as “terrorists.”
Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022 in a conflict that has since killed thousands.
