In a Russian border region scarred by war, civilians want peace with Ukraine — but not compromise
As fighting with Ukraine goes on in Russia's border region of Kursk, residents are hopeful that President Donald Trump can help to end the war.
RYLSK, Russia — Air-raid sirens are greeted with a shrug in the small town of Rylsk in Russia’s southwestern Kursk oblast, where residents carry on with their day unconcerned as loud speakers warn, “Attention, missile danger, proceed to shelter.”
Nearby, soldiers stand around smoking cigarettes or jump from vehicles to pick up packages from the Ozon store, a Russian equivalent of Amazon, in the thousand-year-old town.
Today, Rylsk sits just behind the front lines of the war Russia launched with the invasion of Ukraine, abandoned by the students who used to come and study at its four colleges. Its population is now mostly Russian troops, elderly people and those who have left nearby villages that have been occupied or become too dangerous in the eight months since Ukrainian forces crossed their northwestern border in a surprise incursion that Russia has failed to fully push back.
In the now militarized town that is dotted with traditional blue and white churches, the signs of missile and drone damage are clear on some of the buildings. Standing in the rubble of a destroyed elementary school, Mayor Sergei Kurnosov, 39, told NBC News that a concert hall and a teachers college had also been struck in December. NBC News could not independently verify this claim.
“We hope that peace will come, and we will return to normal peaceful coexistence, normal, peaceful life,” he said, emphasizing that civilians had been killed in the town as a result of the fighting. Here, almost every family has relatives in Ukraine and there are still street signs pointing the way to the town of Glukhov across the border.
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