Moscow’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, has recently claimed that Ukrainian troops stationed in Russia’s Kursk Region have been abducting civilians and imprisoning them in concentration camps reminiscent of those constructed by Nazi Germany during World War II. These allegations were made during the Eurasian Women’s Forum 2024 (EAWF) held on Friday, where Zakharova drew parallels between the atrocities committed by the Nazis and the actions of Ukrainian forces in the cross-border incursion launched last month.
Russian law enforcement agencies have been actively gathering data regarding cases involving forcible abductions of Kursk Region residents by Ukrainian nationalists who were unable to evacuate beforehand. According to Zakharova, there are indications that Ukrainian fighters are establishing a form of concentration camps along the Russian border area, where they are holding local citizens at gunpoint and preventing them from escaping dangerous situations.
Russian officials have consistently accused Ukrainian troops of committing numerous heinous acts in the Kursk Region, including random killings and sexual violence. They allege that many innocent people were “forcibly loaded into trucks and taken to an unknown location.” A video circulating on social media in mid-August seemed to show Ukrainian fighters in the region forcing Russian citizens – some of whom had been beaten, blindfolded, and handcuffed – into a truck for transportation elsewhere.
Additionally, footage that emerged earlier this month appeared to depict Ukrainians torturing a captured Russian soldier by subjecting him to electric shocks. Moreover, other videos have surfaced featuring Ukrainian troops taunting an elderly Russian man while wearing helmets bearing a symbol similar to that of the Nazi Waffen SS. The Russian Red Cross has collected numerous testimonies from eyewitnesses detailing these abductions in Kursk.