{"id":998324,"date":"2026-06-01T12:46:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/998324\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T12:46:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T12:46:14","slug":"over-160-displaced-kursk-residents-returned-from-ukraine-new-human-rights-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/998324\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 160 Displaced Kursk Residents Returned From Ukraine, New Human Rights Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Russia has returned over 160 residents of the southwestern Kursk region more than a year after driving out occupying Ukrainian forces from border areas, the Kremlin\u2019s new human rights ombudswoman<a href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/politika\/27599557\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0said<\/a> Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThrough the direct efforts of the Human Rights Commissioner\u2019s office, we have successfully secured the return of 165 Kursk residents,\u201d Yana Lantratova was quoted as saying by the state-run news agency TASS.<\/p>\n<p>Sixteen of those returned are children,\u00a0Lantratova added.<\/p>\n<p>In April,\u00a0Lantratova\u2019s predecessor, Tatiana Moskalkova, had<a href=\"https:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/2026\/04\/11\/russia-and-ukraine-swap-hundreds-of-prisoners-ahead-of-easter-truce-a92476\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> claimed<\/a> that the last Kursk residents still in Ukrainian captivity had been returned as part of a prisoner-of-war exchange that month.<\/p>\n<p>However, Lantratova<a href=\"https:\/\/tass.ru\/politika\/27599381\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> said<\/a> her office was verifying the exact number of Kursk residents still held in Ukraine, with plans to meet her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets \u201cin the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More than 150,000 people in the Kursk region were ordered to evacuate towns and villages near the border after Ukrainian forces launched a surprise incursion in August 2024. Ukraine was forced to retreat in 2025 after Russian forces, backed by North Korean troops, launched a successful counteroffensive.<\/p>\n<p>Regional officials<a href=\"https:\/\/www.themoscowtimes.com\/2025\/05\/27\/over-350-people-killed-and-nearly-800-still-missing-in-kursk-region-after-ukrainian-incursion-prosecutor-says-a89232\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> estimated<\/a> that more than 350 Kursk residents were killed and nearly 800 remained missing as of May 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine has had thousands of its own civilians held in Russian-occupied territory since the 2022 invasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia has returned over 160 residents of the southwestern Kursk region more than a year after driving out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":998325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,19275,657],"class_list":["post-998324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ukraine","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-kursk","tag-ukraine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116674926191198328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}