Russian law enforcement authorities on Thursday accused Ukrainian troops of killing nine civilians in a Kursk region village that was under Ukrainian occupation until last month.
“It was established that Ukrainian servicemen purposefully shelled residential buildings in the village of Makhnovka in the Sudzhansky district no later than March 2025,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said.
The Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, claimed that six bodies uncovered at the site of the shelling had gunshot wounds, including one elderly woman who was allegedly shot in the head.
It was not immediately possible to verify the Investigative Committee’s claims.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on March 12 that its artillery systems and military aircraft had attacked eight villages surrounding the town of Sudzha and seven villages in Ukraine’s Sumy region across the border. Russia’s military claimed its attacks killed 260 Ukrainian troops.
Pro-war bloggers reported that Russian troops had retaken Makhnovka around that time, though the Defense Ministry has not mentioned the village in its daily briefs since the March 12 statement.
In January, Russia’s Investigative Committee claimed Ukrainian troops killed 22 civilians in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye between September and November.
Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region in August, making it the largest ground offensive against Russia since World War II. However, in recent months, a Russian counteroffensive has gradually chipped away at Ukrainian forces’ hold over swaths of territory.
The Ukrainian military analysis blog DeepState estimates that just over 55 square kilometers (21.5 square miles) of the Kursk region are still held by Kyiv’s forces.
At least 50 civilians have been killed since the cross-border incursion into the Kursk region, according to a tally by the exiled news outlets Agentstvo and 7x7. Some of their relatives complained last week that local officials could not tell them when they would be able to return the bodies.
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