MOSCOW: At least 56 civilians have been killed and 266 wounded during Ukraine's seven-week-old incursion into Russia's western Kursk region, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Kyiv began the cross-border attack on August 6, more than two years after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces remain in the Kursk region. The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier put the death toll at 31 in the period to September 5. The new toll covered the period up to September 20.
It said 131,000 civilians had left the most dangerous areas of the region but accused Ukrainian forces of holding some civilians against their will, including 70-120 people in the town of Sudzha.
Asked about the statement, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhyi said Ukraine abides by international humanitarian law and does not target civilians, and that it was unable to verify the assertions. "Given Russia's long history of false numbers and propaganda, there is simply no way of verifying their claims. If Russia wants to show the real situation on the ground it can grant such access to the UN and ICRC," he said. Both sides have denied targeting civilians and making false claims for propaganda purposes during the 31-month-old conflict.
The Kremlin has previously made clear it regards Ukraine's invitation to the United Nations and International Committee of the Red Cross to the Kursk region as "provocative", and that Moscow expects the UN and ICRC not to accept the invitation.
Kyiv has said its incursion, the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two, is intended partly to prevent Russian forces in the area launching their own incursion across the border into Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that his forces controlled 100 settlements in Kursk region over an area of more than 1,300 sq km.
Meanwhile, Ukraine accused Russia at an international court on Monday of flouting sea law by trying to keep the Kerch Strait between mainland Russia and annexed Crimea under its sole control. Kyiv began proceedings at the Hague-based intergovernmental Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 after Moscow began building the 19 km Crimea Bridge link to the peninsula it seized from Ukraine two years previously.
The bridge is crucial for the supply of fuel, food and other products to Crimea, where the port of Sevastopol is the historic home base of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, and became a major supply route for troops after Moscow's full-scale attack in 2022. — Reuters
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