High-ranking representatives of Kiev announced today that Ukraine is creating " buffer zone" in the Russian Kursk region and plans to organize the delivery of humanitarian aid and the opening of corridors for the evacuation of civilians in both directions - both to Russia and to Ukraine, Reuters reported, BTA reported.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky met with senior officials to discuss the humanitarian situation and the possible establishment of a military administration in the territories captured by Ukrainian units in their cross-border offensive that began on August 6.
"Our military plan is... to open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians both in the direction of Russia and in the direction of Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk wrote in the application "Telegram". Kyiv plans to arrange access for international humanitarian organizations, which will most likely include the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, representatives said.
"In the "buffer zone" food, medicine and other things necessary for the civilian population will be provided", said the Ombudsman of Ukraine Dmytro Lubinets in "Telegram". He added that he "participated in a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which stabilization measures in the Kursk region were discussed," Ukrinform informs.
The Ombudsman said that while exercising his right of self-defense under Art. 51 of the UN Charter, Ukraine has the right not only to defend itself, but also to comply with all international conventions and requirements of international humanitarian law. "For the needs of self-defense, our military created a "buffer (sanitary) zone" in Kursk region", wrote in "Telegram" Lubinets, quoted by Ukrinform.
Zelensky said that Ukrainian forces "strictly observe" international conventions and humanitarian law.
"Security, humanitarian aid, establishment of a military administration if necessary," the head of state wrote in the "Telegram" application, publishing a video of his meeting with high-ranking representatives of Kiev.
Ukraine said today that its cross-border advance had reached two kilometers into Russia's Kursk region since the start of the day and that troops had finally pushed Moscow's forces out of the Russian border town of Suja. For months, Russian forces have been shelling the Ukrainian border areas from their territories close to them, including from the Kursk region, Reuters recalls.
"The creation of a buffer zone in the Kursk region is a step aimed at protecting our border settlements from daily enemy attacks," wrote the Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Klimenko in "Telegram".
Russian President Vladimir Putin used the same terminology in relation to the new front opened by Russian forces in northeastern Ukraine's Kharkiv region in May this year, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, a Russian drone attacked a vehicle of a military medical battalion in the Kharkiv region, killing two medics and wounding three more people, the regional police said, as quoted by Reuters.
The blow was inflicted in the settlement of Beli Kolodez (Bilyy Kolodyaz in Ukrainian), specified on the social network "Facebook". Sergiy Bolvinov, head of the investigation department of the regional police. The medics were killed in the battalion's vehicle, and the three wounded were civilians who were driving nearby.