KURSK, September 5. /TASS/. Servicemen of the Ukrainian 80th separate airborne assault brigade were engaged in mopping up villages in the Kursk Region, said Oleg Ivanenko, a serviceman of the 20th battalion of the Ukrainian 61st mechanized brigade, after he surrendered.
"We spent the night in settlements. We lived in a house for three days. I did not see any civilians. We are infantrymen, so we were the last to enter. The 80th brigade was the first to enter, to mop up the villages," he told TASS.
He said that when the Ukrainian 61st brigade entered Kursk villages, there were no local residents there and their houses were occupied by the Ukrainian military.
Ivanenko surrendered to the Akhmat special forces on August 16. A group of Ukrainian soldiers was ambushed and two people were killed.
Ukrainian forces started a major attack on the Kursk Region on August 6. The government declared a federal-level emergency there and started to evacuate people from areas near the border. According to officials, when the evacuation began, about 2,000 people were missing. Later, it became known that the Ukrainian forces shoot at civilians who tried to leave areas near the border in the Kursk Region. Also, Ukrainian drones started attacking cars of local residents in the region.