About 30,415 people, including nearly 8,000 children have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine due to shelling and attacks. This was stated by Russian Ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova in comments published today and quoted by Reuters and BTA.
In an interview with the media outlet "Arguments and Facts", Moskalkova specified that the evacuees were accommodated in nearly 1,000 centers for temporary accommodation throughout Russia.
Ukraine, which has been under Russian invasion since February 2022, has retaliated with shelling and other attacks on Russia's border areas, with the Ukrainian military saying the strikes targeted infrastructure key to Russia's military campaign.
In August, Ukrainian forces invaded the Kursk region, seizing dozens of villages and holding most of their positions since then, Reuters reports.
Moskalkova added that she had received reports of more than 1,000 Russian citizens from Kursk whose whereabouts are unknown and who were allegedly abducted by Ukrainian forces.
Reuters cannot independently verify the data presented by Moskalkova. So far, there are no comments from Kyiv. Both sides deny attacking or holding civilians captive, although thousands of people have died in the war, most of them Ukrainians.
In the interview, Moskalkova also stated that she had visited over 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia, and similar visits to Russian prisoners were made by her counterpart in Ukraine.