Second request for human corridor made by relatives of Russians trapped in Ukrainian-occupied Sudzha

Relatives of Russians stranded in the Ukrainian-occupied area of Russia’s Kursk region were revealed by Novaya Gazeta on Monday to have appealed to the authorities in both Russia and Ukraine for the second time to open a safe corridor to allow trapped civilians to leave the area at the end of October.

“Our relatives have been left without food, communications, electricity, gas, heating and healthcare for two and a half months. … Those who did escape the combat zone confirm that people there are starving, freezing and dying,” the appeal read.

The appeal, which failed to gain any traction, was the second of its kind lodged on behalf of those who, for whatever reason, did not flee the Kursk region when the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) launched a surprise cross-border incursion in August.

One Sudzha native involved in writing the appeal, Svetlana Lyakhova, travelled to Moscow earlier this month with a copy of the appeal signed by over 2,500 people, Novaya Gazeta wrote. Lyakhova said that while government officials were generally prepared to meet with her, they appeared to have no knowledge of the appeal.

Relatives of the stranded residents made an initial public appeal for a human corridor to allow people to leave the combat zone on 12 September. Moscow and Kyiv both subsequently accused each other of blocking the evacuation of civilians from the occupied parts of the Kursk region.

Russians displaced by the Ukrainian occupation staged a protest in the regional capital Kursk on Sunday, demanding they be acknowledged as victims of war and that their grievances be heard.

Despite repeated assurances by Vladimir Putin that young recruits doing their mandatory military service would not be sent to the front lines since mobilisation was declared in September 2022, many of those captured and killed in the AFU’s Kursk incursion so far have been conscripts.