Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Kirill Velesov
[REGNUM] Almost all residents of the Kursk region who directly or indirectly encountered the Ukrainian Armed Forces and foreign mercenaries during the invasion of the region tell of the militants' atrocities. They shot civilians, threw grenades into residential buildings and stole everything they could take away - from household appliances to awards for heroes of the Great Patriotic War.
A criminal case has been opened against Ukrainian military personnel involved in the shooting of residents of the Kursk region. This was reported on September 22 by the official Telegram channel of the military investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee.
According to the investigation, on August 8, 2024, Ukrainian militants fired from a tank and small arms at two civilian VAZ vehicles traveling along the road from the city of Lgov to the village of Pogrebki in the Sudzhansky District of the Kursk Region. A civilian was killed and two others were injured, the Investigative Committee clarified. One of the vehicles was destroyed, the other was damaged.
“During the preliminary investigation, all representatives of the armed formations of Ukraine who committed these crimes will be identified and brought to justice as provided by law,” the department added.
In turn, the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in an interview with kp.ru stated that the Ukrainian military took some of the civilians captured in the border settlements of the Kursk region outside of Russia. Their fate is currently unknown.
The diplomat also said that in the territory of Kursk Oblast captured by the Ukrainian Armed Forces there are several places that look like concentration camps. One of them is presumably located in the building of a social institution in the city of Sudzha, where Ukrainian militants are holding 70 to 120 people. Zakharova noted that Russian law enforcement agencies are currently investigating the situation.
"HATRED OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE AT THE GENETIC LEVEL"
Ukrainian troops attacked the Kursk region on August 6. Russian troops stopped the enemy in the border areas, preventing them from advancing deeper into the territory.
The "Kursk adventure" cost the Kiev regime dearly. According to the Defense Ministry on September 22, during the military actions in the Kursk region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 16,000 servicemen, 126 tanks and 57 infantry fighting vehicles. Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov emphasized that the operation in the region will end with the defeat of the enemy and access to the state border.
From the first days of the attack, local residents and volunteers present in the region told of the atrocities of the attackers. A large number of testimonies were collected by the Regnum news agency.
One of the first to speak publicly about what was happening in the Kursk region was Roman Yatsenko, a resident of Sudzha. On August 6, he was in Moscow, where he worked as a security guard. When contact with his family was lost, the man went to Sudzha. He managed to get to Martynovka, a settlement five kilometers from Sudzha, by hitchhiking. There, Yatsenko met Russian soldiers. They warned him that a Ukrainian machine gunner was shooting at civilian cars. But the man still decided to break through to his family.
"When I heard the sounds of gunfire and the whistle of bullets above me, I realized that these were not ours. At that moment, I could not imagine this person, and then I learned that there were Poles and French in the Ukrainian group - not only the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Maybe it was a Pole - he could open fire on a woman with children, and on defenseless old people. They probably have a genetic hatred of the Russian people," Yatsenko said in a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the Regnum news agency Marina Akhmedova.
Yatsenko fell to the ground when he heard the shots and made his way through the forest plantation running and in single file, trying to hide from the shooter. The man managed to get to Sudzha, find his family: they took documents, food, essential items, money and tried to leave the city. According to Yatsenko, a Ukrainian militant opened fire on them with a machine gun, after which the adults and children, on his command, fell to the ground and crawled away from the shooter. The family managed to escape through the fields towards Kursk.
"KILLED MY WIFE AND UNBORN CHILD"
When a shell exploded 150 meters from his home on August 5, another resident of Sudzha, Artem Kuznetsov, realized he had to run. The family packed up very quickly — in about fifteen minutes they loaded everything they needed into the car. Their son Matvey, who was only one year and eight months old, was put in a car seat.
They left in two cars: Artyom was driving one, and his pregnant wife Nina, her mother, and Matvey were in the other. They drove a few kilometers, and the man felt as if the car was being showered with stones. A moment later, a bullet whistled past his face, a few centimeters away. Artyom realized that they were shooting at the car. He ducked, and another bullet pierced the peak of his cap.
"I saw the one who shot," Artem told IA Regnum. "And he saw me, our eyes met. And he saw Nina, everyone. We opened the windows on purpose. I looked back, Nina was driving behind me. The car rushed to the side of the road. I ran out and ran to them."
Son Matvey was covered in blood, mother-in-law was screaming. Nina was literally wheezing, blood was gushing from the wound. Artyom tore off his T-shirt, tried to make a tourniquet out of it. Nina began to weaken before our eyes, the wound was very deep. The man grabbed his wife in his arms, carried her to his car. They literally flew to the hospital in Goncharovka. The woman was carried to the operating room on a stretcher.
It was not possible to save pregnant Nina.
"A Nazi killed my wife. Killed my unborn child. Killed the love in me. Shot her. Why did they shoot her? Matvey has three metal fragments in his back. They were a couple of centimeters short of his kidney," Artem said.
The man thought for a long time about why they, the Nazis, came to kill. Probably, he supposes, because we live well: "Russian people love, Nazism came to kill love."
"THEY GET PLEASURE FROM KILLING"
Yuri Sukhorukov, a resident of the village of Guevo in the Sudzhansky District, firmly decided to leave in the first hours after the invasion. He drove around the village, urging his fellow villagers to evacuate, but many did not listen - they thought that "they would shoot and everything would end." But the Ukrainian Armed Forces did not leave. Having already left Guevo, Sukhorukov notified local residents through a group in a messenger that he was preparing an evacuation. They had to leave at night, under fire: through forests and fields, 63 people, including children and elderly women, reached the Psel River. There, Yuri's acquaintances were already waiting for them, along with several boats on which people were ferried across the river.
"For Polish mercenaries, nothing is sacred. If a Ukrainian is still thinking about whether to shoot a peaceful woman or not, they won't even bat an eyelid," Sukhorukov told Regnum.
He also said that at 7 a.m., while passing through a checkpoint, the militants shot at a car, killing "our boy Misha." They saw that a civilian car was driving, but opened fire. And on the road to Kurilovka, they shot a young girl with a small child. In response to the question "Why are they doing this?" the man suggested that they "get pleasure from killing."
"There were several cases when Ukrainian Terrorist Defense troops came to us - they were more loyal to the civilian population than the Germans, Poles and French. The Ukrainians came in and let people get away from the mercenaries, they said directly: if these guys come, we won't be able to do anything," the man said.
When the mercenaries entered, looting began: they stole cars, ransacked stores, and literally scooped out appliances from houses, including refrigerators and washing machines.
"FOR 30 YEARS THEY MADE AN ENEMY OUT OF US"
Nikolai Rylsky, a resident of the Kursk region, tried ten times to get to Sudzha to take his parents out of there. He was unable to get through.
When Nikolai turned around and headed back, he saw a burnt-out car and two people: one was helping the other. The second person was covered in blood. It was war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny, whose car was attacked by a Ukrainian drone. Nikolai offered help, put the wounded Poddubny in his car and drove him to the hospital in Bolshesoldatskoye. It was largely thanks to Rylsky that the war correspondent survived.
A few days later, Nikolai's parents safely left Sudzha. But the whole family will remember those days for the rest of their lives.
"The bulk of those who came in were not Ukrainians, but mercenaries. The guys I spoke to heard Polish, French, English and German speech. […] My friend Sasha was taken prisoner along with his wife. They tied his hands with zip ties. His hands and feet started to turn blue, then they loosened the zip ties. They said: sit here until we leave. Then they cut the zip ties and let him go. These were guys from Odessa, Ukrainians. We don't need you, they said. And another friend of mine, they told me, had two women killed and their stomachs cut open - the Poles," Rylsky told the Regnum news agency, suggesting that they had "such manic tendencies."
Nikolai is sure that the only fair punishment for the mercenaries can be the death penalty, because they knew what they were getting into. Rylsky admits that he does not want to think that the atrocities in the Kursk region were committed by Ukrainians, although he says that they were brainwashed for 30 years - they made an enemy out of us.
" I have hatred, but only towards the leadership, the government of Ukraine. The people were brainwashed to fight against us," says Rylsky.
"THEY TRIED TO DESTROY YOUTH AND CHILDREN"
During a visit to the Bryansk region, the editor-in-chief of the Regnum news agency, Marina Akhmedova, spoke with public figures who told the stories of residents of the Kursk region who were forced to leave their homes.
According to volunteer Yulia, everyone who directly or indirectly met with the Ukrainian Armed Forces speaks of the atrocities of Ukrainian militants. One of the pensioners who managed to leave Sudzha reported that the Ukrainian Armed Forces entered the settlement in uniform without identification marks.
At the same time, they spoke pure Russian - many old people who refused to evacuate took them for Russian soldiers.
"They thought that Russian soldiers were walking and saying: "Are there young people, children?" They [the pensioners] thought that they were our guys. They said, yes, there are more, at the end of the street. Let us feed you, give you everything. But they [the Ukrainian Armed Forces] reached the end of the street and started blowing up houses. Where there were young people. They tried to simply destroy young people and children," the volunteer reported the pensioner's story.
THEY TRAMPLED THE RUSSIAN FLAG AND STOLE THE MEDALS OF THE HERO OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR
In September, during the clearing of one of the houses in the village of Snagost in the Kursk region, servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces found the backpack of a liquidated Ukrainian soldier, which contained the stolen medals of World War II veteran Nikolai Ptashkin.
Nikolai Andreevich Ptashkin went to the front in 1943 at the age of 19, where he served in the 16th rifle division. During the war, he was wounded in the right arm, which bothered him for the rest of his life. Nikolai Andreevich died in 1987, and his wife in 2007. After his death, the veteran's son and his family lived in the house in Snagosti.
The editorial staff of the Regnum news agency found relatives of the WWII hero whose house was looted by a VSU officer. The relatives said that during the invasion of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the first to enter their house were mercenaries from France and Poland, who trampled the Russian flag hanging on the house before the family's eyes.
"My uncle is Nikolai Andreevich's youngest son. He has lived in this house all his life. He is now 56 years old. After the Ukrainian Armed Forces arrived, he, his wife and 14-year-old daughter lived for two weeks under the control of the Ukrainian army. He said that the Poles and the French were the first to enter the village. At first, there were no Ukrainians at all. When they came to my uncle's house, they saw the Russian flag on the house. They took it down and started trampling on it, then laughed and threatened the family with weapons so that they would not leave the house. We persuaded my uncle to evacuate to Kursk. Two weeks later, at dawn, my uncle, his wife and daughter decided to escape," Tatyana said.
Nikolai Andreevich's son knew the area well and was able to find the shortest and safest route to Kursk.
"Early in the morning we went to the Seim River and walked along it for about five hours. The only things we had with us were our passports. I was most worried about my daughter - she is in the seventh grade, and it is unclear what would have happened to her if we had stayed in the house. For her sake, we had to take a risk. We heard that some people were shot when they tried to escape in boats. But we were saved by the fact that I am a hunter and fisherman and I know all these places well. I knew where the dams were, where the hidden paths and thickets were, and how to walk unnoticed," Nikolai told IA Regnum.
After five hours of travel through forests and rivers, the family reached the Emergencies Ministry station. Rescuers had already helped them get to Kursk.
Nikolai Ptashkin's granddaughter Tatyana still does not know what happened to their house in the village of Snagost, admitting that it was completely destroyed - there were fierce battles in the village. Now the Russian army has completely liberated the village from the invaders.
More from regnum.ru
Russian Foreign Ministry: Ukrainian Armed Forces are holding up to 120 civilians captive in Sudzha, including up to 15 children
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) are holding from 70 to 120 civilians in one of the social institutions in Sudzha. This was stated by Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry Rodion Miroshnik during a press conference.
"On the other side we have places where civilians have been forcibly driven, in particular Sudzha, one of the social institutions. According to our data, from 70 to 120 people are being held in this territory," he said.
According to him, up to 15 people are children.
Miroshnik added that it is currently known about 266 wounded and 56 killed civilians since the invasion of Ukrainian troops into the Kursk region. However, it will be possible to calculate all the data, establish all the consequences and initiate criminal cases only after the liberation of this territory from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the diplomat added.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, reported that the Ukrainian military had taken some of the civilians captured in the border settlements of the Kursk region outside of Russia. Their fate is currently unknown, she added.
According to the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, Tatyana Moskalkova, since August 5, 2024, 1,118 requests have been received regarding the protection of the rights of civilians and military personnel captured in the Kursk region.
Earlier, the Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against Ukrainian military personnel involved in the shooting of residents of the Kursk region. According to the investigation, on August 8, 2024, Ukrainian militants fired at two civilian VAZ cars in the Sudzhansky district using a tank and small arms. As a result of the incident, one civilian was killed and two more were injured.
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