“It is still unclear whether we are safe or not. We have no peace because there are still drones … We live in fear, one day at a time,” Marina told DW. She is a refugee from Russia’sKursk region and doesn’t want to disclose her current location.
She and her family fled their village after Ukrainian troops crossed the border into Russia in August 2024 and launched a surprise incursion into the region which is to the north-east of Ukraine, north of the Donbass region, which is illegally occupied by Russia.
Like Marina, thousands of locals left their homes, finding refuge further away from the frontline in nearby villages and towns.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory caught Moscow off guard and has since turned into a military humiliation for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. For seven months, Ukrainian troops held on to parts of the region, including the town of Sudzha. For thousands of locals, the long stalemate led to a humanitarian catastrophe and a personal tragedy.
On April 26, the Russian military claimed to have regained full control of the Kursk region but hours later the Ukrainian army dismissed these claims, calling them “propaganda tricks.”
Conflicting messages from both capitals mean that it’s unclear whether Ukraine’s military is still present in some parts of the Kursk region or not. But the situation remains tense.
Life under Ukrainian control
Anastasia and her family left Sudzha on the first day of the incursion. The town is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border with Ukraine. Aside from many smaller villages, Sudzha was the only actual town Ukraine captured. The Russian military retook it in March this year.
Like Anastasia, most of the locals fled and the town then saw some of the most gruesome fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Intense shelling left the town in ruins with mines scattered across the streets.
Some locals, such as Anastasia’s uncle, had preferred to stay. “He either died or he was killed. Well, I don’t know exactly,” Anastasia told DW, adding that she had no information about whether he had received a funeral. She and her family have so far been unable to return to Sudzha.
Both Russian independent media outlets and state media have reported cases of looting in the Kursk region. Some residents told DW that their cars had been stolen, but they were unable to say which military was responsible.
Russia has accused Ukraine’s military of “committing war crimes” in the Kursk region, but it has issued no credible evidence to back the allegations.
“All we know about this is that the armed forces of Ukraine always try to solve humanitarian issues related to local civilians regardless of the citizenship of these people,” Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US, told DW.
By contrast, according to the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, Russia has systematically committed war crimes in Ukraine, such as torture, sexual violence, or child deportations. In January, the UN estimated that more than 12,300 civilians in Ukraine had been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Residents feel abandoned by the state
In the wake of Ukraine’s incursion, many felt that they had been left to fend for themselves.
“Please take the message to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that nobody needs us at all,” one local woman pleaded in a video shared by the Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti in August.
Despite this perceived lack of swift support for Kursk residents from the Russian government, Russian state media portrayed the unfolding humanitarian crisis since last summer as a time when Russians came together to volunteer for those in need.
Some refugees confirmed to DW that they were receiving support from the state, but others said the Kremlin had neglected displaced people in Kursk and failed to fulfill its promises.
“They talk and promise more than they do. The reality is different,” Nadezhda, another resident of the city of Kursk, told DW.
The Russian authorities, however, do not accept that criticism, even suggesting that people are ungrateful.
“I have an impression that before 2022, you were living on an uninhabited island, that you had no roads, hospitals, schools … that it was not the government who was paying your pension, that it came just out of the blue,” Alexander Khinshtein, the current governor of the Kursk region, defended Moscow’s dedication to the region in a meeting with Kursk locals last December.
Do locals relate to Ukrainians under Russian occupation?
Many Kursk residents pointed the blame at the Ukrainian army for bringing misery and destruction to their land, and praised Russian soldiers for their “liberation,” but some quietly expressed dissent and blamed Putin for starting the war in the first place.
“[People say], ‘Thank you, Vladimir Vladimirovich, for starting a special military operation in Ukraine; otherwise there would be a war [in Russia],'” Vitaliy, a Kursk resident who fled the region but stayed in Russia, told DW, referring to locals who believe the Russian state media narrative that there is no war in Ukraine, but only a military operation aimed at protecting Russia’s security.
“Many still don’t realize where the root of the evil really is and who brought death to their homes,” Vitaliy added.
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, its support of pro-Russian rebels in Luhansk and Donetsk and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there are now millions of Ukrainians living under Russian occupation.
“Poor, unhappy people, they are not guilty, as we are not now,” Marina told DW. “I feel sorry for them and for us, too. We are ordinary people. We did not want the bloodshed.”
Others, however, don’t want to discuss the issue at all.
“I don’t want to feel anything towards [Ukrainians]. I just want to detach myself from this and live my life,” Nadezhda, another Kursk resident, told DW.
Is there a way back home for Russian refugees?
Despite Russia’s regaining control of the region, the drones, shelling and sirens remain a daily occurrence in some parts of Kursk , especially areas close to the Ukraine border.
According to the Russian authorities, at least 191 civilians have died in the Kursk region since Ukraine launched its incursion last August. Independent Russian media Agentstvo and 7×7 have identified 70 civilian deaths.
Russia’s Interior Ministry claims that about 2,000 Kursk residents are still missing.
Many locals have confirmed to DW that their houses have been destroyed. Others who want to return are unsure whether their homes are still there. Most of the refugees still are unable to go home for safety reasons.
“We would like to [return to Sudzha], if there is anything to return to,” Anastasia told DW. But she too doesn’t know whether her house was destroyed during heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops.
*The names of the Kursk residents have been changed to protect their identities.
Edited by: Andreas Ilmer
