Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova greets an evacuee in the Kursk region, Russia, 3 March 2025. Photo: Telegram

Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova announced on Monday that 33 residents of Russia’s partially occupied Kursk region who had been evacuated from fighting near their homes to neighbouring Ukraine had returned to Russia.

The 33 people in question, who were assisted by the International Red Cross with Belarusian mediation, were evacuated to Ukraine on safety grounds after the warring sides were unable to agree on a safe corridor through which civilians could leave occupied areas of Russia’s Kursk region.

Moskalkova said those returning home were mostly elderly people, though she added that the group also included four children. She said that 10 ambulances were on hand to transfer the sick and injured to hospitals in the regional capital Kursk, while the others would rest overnight before being reunited with their families on Tuesday.

Alexander Khinshtein, the acting governor of the Kursk region, said that one of the evacuees being returned to the country would turn 90 in May, while the youngest returnee was a toddler. He said that work to return any Kursk region natives currently in Ukraine would continue until every single one had returned home, without giving any indication of exactly how many evacuees there were, state-owned news agency TASS reported.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) launched a surprise military incursion into the Kursk region in August that is ongoing. Civilian evacuees have been taken to the neighbouring Sumy region, from where they travel back to Russia, normally via Belarus.

When previous evacuations have been announced by the AFU, some locals have refused to leave out of mistrust for the Ukrainians, fear of the unknown or not wanting to abandon other family members.