More than 76,000 people have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine in Russia's Kursk region, the local emergency ministry was quoted by the Tass news agency as saying on Saturday, following Ukraine's incursion into the region this week.
Russia is fighting intense battles against thousands of Ukrainian troops as deep as 20 km (12 miles) inside the Kursk region after Ukraine's biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since the start of the war in 2022.
On Monday, the governor of Russia's Kursk region said that Ukraine had taken control of 28 settlements in the border province.