Volunteers load a truck with humanitarian aid intended for residents of the Kursk region, where Ukraine launch a daring cross-border offensive on Aug. 6.Maxim Shemetov/Reuters
Ukraine has set up storage facilities in its northern region of Sumy to hold and send humanitarian aid to Russian civilians in the Kyiv-held part of Russia’s western region of Kursk, the interior minister said on Friday.
Ukraine has said it has taken control of 82 settlements over an area of 1,150 square kilometres in the region after it launched a major cross-border attack on Aug. 6.
“The citizens abandoned by Russia are mostly elderly people, people with disabilities, and families with children. They need food, water and medicine,” minister Ihor Klymenko said on the Telegram messaging app.
He didn’t specify how many of the storage facilities had been set up, or where they are, but a video posted on the ministry’s Telegram account showed a large inflatable tent and Ukrainian military personnel carrying parcels and packing food.
During a trip to the Sumy region, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, Mr. Klymenko said about 150 food parcels had been sent to civilians in the area.
Kyiv officials have said they plan to create evacuation corridors from the Kursk region and to open access to international humanitarian missions.
Russia has called the Ukrainian incursion a “major provocation” and vowed to retaliate with a “worthy response,” more than 2-1/2 years since it launched a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour.