President Vladimir Putin announced a compensation plan for civilians in the Russian region attacked by Ukraine.
Russians “in need” will be eligible for a one-time payment of 10,000 rubles, Putin says said during a video call with the acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, according to the translation of the Kyiv Post.
That works out to about $115.
“Other damage also needs to be assessed,” Putin said.
About 3,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk, the western Russian border region that was attacked by Ukrainian forces this week. officials have said.
Speaking to Putin, Smirnov said that extra trains were planned to take people to temporary housing and that he had set up a telephone helpline. Public sector workers would still get their salaries, he added.
To be clear, $115 won’t get you far in Russia, even when you factor in the lower prices there. The Russian Statistical Office said that the average monthly salary before taxes in 2022 was just over 71,000 rubles, or about $ 800.
Last fall, nearly half of Russians said their monthly salary was not enough to cover basic needs; and under a feverish war economythe country’s annual inflation is above 9%.
Despite earlier assurances from Smirnov that the situation was under control, reports from pro-Kremlin military bloggers suggest that some people faced disorderly evacuations, the Institute for the Study of War said.
A civilian in Sudzha, a city seen as the target of the Ukrainian attack, told the independent Russian news agency Meduza that she fled before an evacuation was organized.
“When I look at the news, our city no longer exists,” she said.
Images shared by Russian authorities, said to have come from the region, show destroyed homes.
Strict instructions were given to state-controlled media to limit reporting on the attack, Meduza reportedreferring to industry insiders.
The full contours of Ukraine’s surprise invasion of Kursk remain unclear, but both Western and Russian commentators have said that Russia appears to have launched the attack. misled.
Russia said on Wednesday that Ukraine had pledged up to 1,000 troops for the fight, supported by tanks, armored vehicles and anti-aircraft guns.
On Thursday, the ISW estimated that Ukrainian troops had penetrated as far as 34 kilometers into Russian territory. It is unlikely that they have control of territory that far away.
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