Majority of residents evacuated from Russia's border district in Belgorod Oblast.

Support independent journalism in Ukraine. Join us in this fight.

Some 11,000 residents of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district in Russia's Belgorod Oblast have been evacuated, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Aug.

13 amid Ukrainian cross-border incursions. The Krasnoyaruzhsky district borders Ukraine's Sumy Oblast and Russia's Kursk Oblast, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion on Aug.

6. Kyiv's forces have reportedly also entered Belgorod Oblast, supposedly displaying a Ukrainian flag in the village of Poroz in the Grayvoronsky border district, lying just south of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district.

According to a 2020 census, a little over 14,000 residents lived in the Krasnoyaruzhsky district, meaning the vast majority of this number had been evacuated. "Yesterday, residents of the Krasnoyaruzhsky district left their settlements. Due to the operational situation, more than 11,000 people had left," Gladkov said in a video address on his Telegram channel.

Roughly 1,000 of them have been placed in temporary accommodation facilities, he added.

WTF is wrong with Russia?

The governor announced the evacuation on Aug.

12 due to the reported activity of the Ukrainian army in the area. The step mirrors similar measures taken in Kursk Oblast, where thousands of people were mandated to leave their homes amid the Ukrainian advance. Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups entered the territory of the Belovsky district in Russia's Kursk region overnight on Aug.

11, the head of the district, Nikolai Volobuev, claimed that day. According to Volobuev, the group's appearance created "a lot of panic" in the Belovsky district, which borders the Krasnoyaruzhsky district. Volobuev described the current situation as "stable but very tense."

The Russian state-controlled media outlet TASS reported on Aug.

10 that over 76,000 residents of Kursk Oblast had been evacuated due to the ongoing fighting. Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that Ukrainian forces control around 1,000 square kilometers in Kursk Oblast as of Aug.

12. Russia's regional authorities said that Ukraine is in control of 28 settlements in Kursk Oblast as of Aug.

12, claiming that the incursion was up to 12 kilometers deep along a 40-kilometer front.

Kursk incursion and Crimea strikes could ease pressure on Ukraine's Donbas forces

Ukraine's surprise incursion into Russia's Kursk Oblast over the past week is lifting some hopes for Ukrainian soldiers losing ground on the eastern front amid worsening manpower and ammunition shortages.

Ukraine launched its stunning counterattack in the northeast into Russian territory 10 months...