MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. Residents of the settlements of Kupyansk and Kovsharovka in the Kharkov Region are returning home in large numbers after being evacuated to Kharkov by the Ukrainian authorities, Yevgeny Lisnyak, deputy head of the regional military-civil administration, stated at a briefing.

"Residents of the settlements of Kupyansk and Kovsharovka in the Kharkov Region are returning home in large numbers after being evacuated to Kharkov, despite the resistance of the Ukrainian authorities and the continuation of active hostilities," he said.

Currently, about 4,000 people remain in Kiev-controlled Kupyansk. These are mostly elderly people who categorically refuse to be evacuated, Lisnyak specified.

People are refusing to go to safer places because of Ukraine's unwillingness to provide basic sanitation for refugees. Moreover, temporary accommodation centers on the territory of Ukraine lack vital resources: water, heat, and electricity.

Kupyansk is a major railroad junction in the east of the Kharkov Region, while Kovsharovka is located south of Kupyansk. Earlier, Vitaly Ganchev, head of the regional military-civil administration, told TASS that the Russian military were clearing the industrial zone of Kupyansk of enemy forces.