Ukraine Returns Residents Of Russian Border Region In Rare Deal With Moscow

Dozens of residents from the Russian border region of Kursk have been returned to Russia from Ukraine following rare and "painstaking" talks between Moscow and Kyiv, Moscow said Friday.

Kyiv launched a major ground offensive into the Kursk region in August, capturing large swathes of Russian territory home to thousands of civilians.

It was not clear why the residents had been transported into Ukraine, and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

"Today, 46 residents of the Kursk region returned to Russia from Ukraine as a result of a negotiation process with the Ukrainian side," Russian human rights ombudsman Tatiana Moskalkova said.

The residents were all from the Sudzhansky district, home to the border town of Sudzha which Ukraine captured shortly after launching its offensive, according to local governor Alexei Smirnov.

"The painstaking and lengthy negotiations to return our fellow countrymen to their homeland have brought results," he said on Telegram.

The residents included 12 children and were returned via Belarus, with all of them being given "all necessary assistance", he added.

One of the children being returned in the deal was three-year-old Darina, her mother, Anastasia Gridina, told AFP.

"They are already on the way. In four hours I will meet Darina," she said.

Gridina had gone to Moscow for temporary work, leaving her daughter with her grandmother in the Kursk region village of Lebedevka when Ukraine launched its shock offensive.

In October she told AFP she had been pleading for help "everywhere," even writing a personal letter to President Vladimir Putin.

At one point she tried to cross the front line herself, but was forced to turn back.

The deal comes at a tense moment in the Ukraine conflict, with Kyiv firing British and US-supplied long-range missiles into Russia and Moscow firing a hypersonic missile at its neighbour.

The limited return of civilians, as well as exchanges of captured soldiers and bodies of killed fighters have become the only areas of co-operation between the two sides, which have been fighting since Moscow launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022.

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