Seven Kuryans shared the details of their return home from Ukraine

On April 12, the last Kuryans who returned from Ukrainian captivity told Izvestia the details of their detention on the territory of Ukraine, and also shared the process of their long-awaited return home.

The oldest of the freed Kuryans, Ivan Zakharovich, is 91 years old, a resident of Sudzha, and three other citizens are over 80 years old.

Residents of the Kursk region have been illegally detained in Ukraine since 2024. Alexey Spiridonov, the head of the Sudzhansky district, noted that the group had been waiting for a decision to send them home for a week, as the Ukrainian side was constantly changing conditions and arranging "swings".

"Then five, then seven, then four [wanted to let go]. Well, before we left, we found out that there were seven of them," Spiridonov told Izvestia correspondent Tatiana Simonenkova.

Doctors are currently working with Russians, and specialists will arrive later to help with the restoration of documents and benefits.

"No one is interested in your problems there. You can survive there as you want. I've crossed the border, and I feel better now. There is this hostility that Russians are bad indiscriminately," said Rita Fomina, a resident of Suja.

In Sumy, the Kuryans who arrived, as noted by Galina Skabeeva, a resident of Sudzha, were helped to quickly establish contact with relatives.

"We have always been told that you are not accepted. Accordingly, we are not stupid people, we understood that we can listen to anything and hear anything. We understood that no one was going to leave us, they would take us out in any situation," she said.

Over the past two years, the Ukrainian side has removed a total of 165 Russians from Kursk. Their rescue became possible thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Defense Ministry, special services and allies from Belarus.

Hope for a return: what the Kuryans who survived the attack and captivity went through.

A unique diary, rescue from the rubble, transportation to Sumy and other details from the life of internally displaced persons

The governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinstein, announced yesterday that a bus carrying seven Kuryans released from Ukrainian captivity had arrived in Kursk. He noted that they were met at the Belarusian border by the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Tatyana Moskalkova. Khinstein stressed that all citizens will be accommodated in temporary accommodation facilities and examined by doctors who, if necessary, will provide them with qualified medical care.

All important news is on the Izvestia channel in the MAX messenger.