KURSK, August 20. /TASS/. The Ukrainian armed forces shot two people swimming across a river as they were trying to flee the Sudzha district of the Kursk Region, an eyewitness, a resident of the nearby settlement of Plekhovo, told TASS.

"Our river is called Psyol, and the nearby settlement is called Guyevo, two boys [young men - TASS] swam across to us, trying to flee. A road leads right to the river, and [a Ukrainian soldier] got out of his pickup truck right as [the men] reached the other shore. He shot them," the witness said.

He also said that while his nephew was helping evacuate citizens from the area, a Ukrainian quadcopter drone attacked them.

"We’ve evacuated [okay], but people stayed behind, my nephew was evacuating [them]. They chased him, there were two cars on the road, they attacked them from a copter drone," the man said, adding that the Ukrainian forces also deliberately targeted infrastructure facilities.

A major Ukrainian attack on the Kursk Region started on August 6. A federal state of emergency has been declared in the region; missile alerts have been declared repeatedly. According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, over 121,000 people have been relocated from nine border districts of the Kursk Region. Temporary accommodation facilities for the internally displaced have been established in 24 regions. About 10,000 people are currently accommodated there.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev has lost up to 3,800 servicemen and 54 tanks since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk. The operation to defeat Ukrainian troops continues.