MOSCOW (Reuters) – The financial harm from Ukraine’s assault on Russia’s primarily agricultural Kursk area is estimated at nearly $1 billion, with greater than 150,000 folks evacuated because the begin of the incursion, the regional governor stated on Wednesday.
Ukraine on Aug. 6 launched the most important overseas assault on Russia since World Struggle Two, bursting via the border into the Kursk area with hundreds of troops supported by swarms of drones and heavy weaponry, together with Western-made arms.
Kursk is a serious grain producer in Russia, contributing 4% to the overall grain harvest final yr. Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter.
“The introduction of a federal emergency regime and a counter-terrorist operation regime within the area have had a big affect on the area’s financial system,” Governor Alexei Smirnov stated in a publicly broadcast assembly with senior officers at Russia’s agriculture ministry.
Earlier on Wednesday, pro-Moscow warfare bloggers and a senior Russian commander stated Russian forces had begun a big counter-offensive in opposition to the Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
Smirnov stated “the estimated harm has amounted to tens of billions of rubles and is growing”. His public presentation, proven in the course of the occasion, offered a preliminary estimate of 85 billion roubles ($934.07 million).
He stated the harvesting of grains couldn’t be accomplished on an space of 160,000 hectares, whereas oilseed crops amounting to 500,000 metric tons and sugar beet amounting to 700,000 tons had been broken or transported out of Russia.
Based on the governor’s figures, greater than 300,000 tons of grain stay in warehouses in territory at present occupied by Ukrainian forces. Smirnov additionally reported important livestock losses, with over 350,000 heads of pigs and cattle lifeless.
($1 = 91.0000 roubles)
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; enhancing by Man Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones)
