MOSCOW (Reuters) - At least 56 civilians have been killed and 266 wounded during Ukraine's seven-week-old incursion into Russia's western Kursk region, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday.
Kyiv began the cross-border attack on Aug. 6, more than two years after Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces remain in the Kursk region.
The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier put the death toll at 31 in the period to Sept. 5. The new toll covered the period up to Sept. 20.
It said 131,000 civilians had left the most dangerous areas of the region but accused Ukrainian forces of holding some civilians against their will, including 70-120 people in the town of Sudzha.
Ukraine did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Foreign Ministry's remarks.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side. Both sides have denied targeting civilians during the 31-month-old conflict.
Kyiv has previously said its incursion, the biggest foreign attack on Russia since World War Two, is intended partly to prevent Russian forces in the area launching their own incursion across the border into Ukraine.
Kyiv has accused Russia of bomb strikes in the Kursk region and has asked representatives of the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to go to the region, saying this would prove Ukraine's adherence to international humanitarian law during the incursion.
The Kremlin said such statements were "provocative", and made clear Moscow expected the UN and ICRC not to accept the invitation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier this month that his forces controlled 100 settlements in Kursk region over an area of more than 1,300 sq km (500 sq miles). Russian sources disputed this figure and Russia says it has since taken back some villages in a counter-attack.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Writing by Maxim Rodionov, Editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Timothy Heritage)
