At least 66 civilians including nine children have been wounded by Ukrainian artillery strikes in the past few days, amid Kiev’s cross-border foray into Russia’s Kursk Region, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said on Thursday.
Ukraine launched an incursion into the border region on Tuesday, with a force numbering up to a thousand personnel, armed with heavy equipment, Russian Defense officials reported on Tuesday. The Ukrainian advance deeper into Russian territory has been stopped, they added.
“According to operational data from the Federal Center for Disaster Medicine of the Ministry of Health of Russia, 66 people, including nine children, were injured as a result of shelling of Kursk Region by Ukrainian armed formations between August 6 and 8,” Murashko said in a post on the ministry’s official Telegram channel.
Of those, 38 are being treated in local medical facilities, including five children, he said. Murashko added that 19 Russians – of whom two are children – have received outpatient treatment since the start of the Ukrainian incursion. The ministry’s disaster medicine specialists have been dispatched to the region to aid in the relief effort.
Early on Tuesday, Kiev began a cross-border assault into the Kursk Region of Russia, with the fighting mainly taking place around the town of Sudzha. Officials in Ukraine claimed on Thursday that one of the goals of the advance may be to instil “fear” into the Russian populace, and undermine their support for their government. Russian President Vladimir Putin has branded the attack a “large-scale provocation,” accusing Ukraine of indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
According to the region’s acting governor, Aleksey Smirnov, Ukrainian have been “firing at civilians and ambulances,” with “instances where medics have died.”
On Tuesday, he reported that “Ukrainian Nazis struck an ambulance with a drone near Sudzha,” adding that the “driver and a paramedic died and a doctor sustained injuries.”
Multiple videos circulating online appear to show Ukrainian troops firing on civilian cars, as Russians attempt to evacuate from the combat area.
According to a report from the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday, more than 660 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded since the start of the raid, and 82 units of heavy equipment have been destroyed.