WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE KURSK REGION?
At least 12 civilians have been killed and 121 others injured by the fighting, according to Kursk regional governor Smirnov.
Russian state media has aired few images from the border region, as the Kremlin seeks to downplay the impact of the war on its civilians.
But as of Monday, 121,000 people had left or been evacuated, Smirnov said. The governor of the neighbouring Belgorod region also announced evacuations from one border district.
Emergency aid has been ferried into the border area and extra trains to the capital Moscow have been put on for people fleeing the fighting.
A local Russian TV station broadcast images from the centre of Sudzha showing destroyed buildings, debris strewn across streets and large craters in the ground from artillery strikes.
Several Russian media outlets shared a video purporting to show residents who had fled from the town appealing to Putin for help, with many warning that family members had been unable to evacuate.
“In a few hours our town was turned into ruins … Our relatives are left behind, we can’t call them, there is no communication. Please help us get our land back,” one resident said in the video.
A priest in the town, Evgeny Shestopalov, said in a video shared by Russian media on Aug 7 that Sudzha was “on fire” and that residents unable to evacuate were sheltering at his church.
WHY IS SUDZHA IMPORTANT?
The small town of about 5,000 people is home to the Sudzha metering station, the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas still heading to Europe via Ukraine.
It is by far the largest town Ukraine has been battling to control in the incursion.
About 14.65 billion cubic metres of gas were transported through Sudzha in 2023, a little under half Russia’s gas exports to Europe, according to the RBC Ukraine news outlet.
While Europe has drastically cut its dependence on Russian pipeline gas since the invasion, Russia has kept supplying gas via Sudzha under a five-year agreement it signed with Kyiv at the end of 2019.
Ukraine has said it will not renew the transit agreement when it expires at the end of 2024.
But there are concerns that Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom could use the fighting as an excuse to halt gas exports via Sudzha prematurely.
Videos from Aug 9 showed Ukrainian soldiers carrying assault rifles and flags in front of a Gazprom facility in the vicinity of the town.
Source: CNA
