Russia has secured the return of all Kursk region residents known to have been held by Ukraine after it launched its border incursion in 2024, Russia’s human rights ombudsman told President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
“We managed to persuade Ukraine and bring back home all the residents of the Kursk region who were being unlawfully detained in Ukrainian territory,” said Yana Lantratova during her first public meeting with Putin since becoming human rights commissioner last month.
Her announcement follows the repatriation of five Kursk residents on Saturday, who were met by their families and Kursk Governor Alexander Khinshtein.
“They’re all home now,” Lantratova told Putin at the Kremlin.
Overall, regional authorities say 171 Kursk residents have been returned. However, the fate of 320 others remains unknown.
Khinshtein noted that there is no confirmed information about any other Kursk region residents being held in Ukraine. “But we’re not losing hope,” he said this weekend.
Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region in August 2024. They were forced to retreat in early 2025 after Russian forces, backed by North Korean troops, launched a counteroffensive.
Regional officials previously estimated that more than 350 Kursk residents were killed amid the fighting. More than 150,000 people in the Kursk region were ordered to evacuate towns and villages near the border.
Ukraine has had thousands of its own civilians held in Russian-occupied territory since the 2022 invasion.
On Friday, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said he met Lantratova to discuss the exchanges of prisoners of war, as well as the search for missing people and the verification and release of civilian hostages.
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