Russia reported 12 civilians killed and 121 injured, including nine children, during the first six days of Ukraine's incursion into the Kursk region. Local authorities said an estimated 121,000 people fled the war zone.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on August 12 that Kyiv’s Kursk operation “aimed at strengthening their negotiating position” but rejected the possibility of peace talks, citing unfounded allegations of Ukraine’s indiscriminate targeting of Russian civilians.
“[W]hat kind of negotiations can we have with those who indiscriminately attack civilians and civilian infrastructure, or pose threats to nuclear power facilities?” he said.
The claim is unsubstantiated.
Any war causes unintended civilian casualties. However, intentionally targeting and harming civilians is a war crime under international law.
Reuters reported that restricted access of independent journalists to the area makes Russian accusations against Ukraine impossible to verify.
Neither Putin nor other Russian officials or news media provided evidence to back the accusations that Ukrainian troops intentionally harm civilians in Kursk.
Largely, the Russian media and officials propagate three incidents as evidence of Ukrainian troops’ criminal activities as they progress into the Kursk region. VOA looked into all three and found no credibility to the claims that these incidents prove Ukraine’s targeting of civilians. Below are the details of each incident.
On August 7 and 8, Russian news media reported that Ukrainian soldiers shot for no reason at a car with a Russian family fleeing the combat zone in the Sudzha district, allegedly killing a pregnant woman and injuring her infant son. KP.ru headlined its report: “VSU soldiers savagely dealt with a pregnant woman as her baby watched,” using the Russian abbreviation for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The first reports about the incident cited Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov, who posted in his Telegram channel that “unfortunately a woman resident of Sudzha was killed.” Smirnov provided no details about the circumstances of the woman’s death.
The most cited piece of “evidence” provided by the Russian news media is a two-minute interview with the woman's husband filmed by Izvestia newspaper correspondent Emil Timashev.
In the video, Artem Kuznetsov, the widower, does not say anything about Ukrainian troops shooting at his wife’s car. Moreover, he tells Izavestia that the doctors who treated his infant son at the hospital in Kursk determined the baby’s wounds were caused by shrapnel.
Thus, none of the cited “evidence” provides direct or even circumstantial proof of Ukrainian troops deliberately shooting at a civilian car and killing a woman.
Kursk’s acting governor Smirnov was the original source of another report – an alleged deliberate drone strike the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) delivered on an ambulance near the city of Sudzha.
"The driver and paramedic were killed, the doctor was injured," Smirnov wrote on his Telegram channel on August 8.
The Russian news agency Regnum, among others, reported on the incident, citing Irina Konova, the sister of one of the victims, as their source. Konova told journalists a drone hit the ambulance causing four explosions. She said nothing about whose drone it was and did not blame Ukraine.
Lenta.ru, a Russian news site, published two photos of what was claimed to be the exterior and interior of the ambulance allegedly attacked by Ukrainian drones. The exterior photo shows an ambulance with a cracked windshield and no other visible damage. The interior photo shows no traces of blood or significant damage. Those photographs are inconsistent with the damage that would have been caused by four explosions that killed two people and wounded a third. There is no evidence of Ukraine intentionally striking an ambulance.
The third case is based on “testimony of a Ukrainian POV” who, the Russian state media said, “confessed” that AFU command instructed troops to shoot civilians who resisted them in the Kursk region. The news reports showed a video clip provided by the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB.
In the video, the Ukrainian POW says the commanders ordered them to shoot the men in the legs and imprison them in cellars. The heavily edited video does not specify whether the Ukrainian POV spoke about the Russian military men or civilians. Ukraine has yet to confirm the soldier's identity. It is impossible to verify whether the prisoner revealed true information or made a false statement under duress.
In a fourth case, also widely reported by the Russian media, Moscow admitted there is no proof of Ukraine deliberately striking a residential building or targeting civilians.
On August 10, Russian air defense intercepted Ukrainian missile in Kursk. The debris hit a multi-story building injuring 13 people. Reports indicate that Ukraine most likely targeted a nearby railway station, a critical military asset.
On August 9, the United Nations expressed concern about reported civilian casualties in the Kursk region and later requested that Russia grant access to investigate alleged human rights violations by Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
On August 14, Ukraine announced opening humanitarian corridors in Kursk to evacuate civilians to Russia and Ukraine and invited international organizations to aid and monitor.