Russia's Kursk residents fled Kyiv onslaught 'at last moment'
She told AFP that she and her husband had waited until "the last moment" to flee their house on August 19, along with their three children, aged 9, 13 and 30.
"There wasn't anyone left in the village any more," said Galina, who lived in Alexandrovka, a small settlement about 25 kilometres from the border with Ukraine.
Ukrainian armed forces launched a large-scale surprise offensive into Russia's Kursk region on August 6, with Kyiv saying its goal is to create a "buffer zone" to protect civilians living near the border, as well as put pressure on Moscow to agree to "fair talks".
Ukraine claims to have taken control of 100 settlements in nearly one month, pushing 130,000 Russian civilians to evacuate.
The Tolmachev family waited to leave until "shells were falling right under the porch and in the vegetable patch, too," said Galina.
At that point, they had to leave "everything" as they were forced to evacuate by the Russian army.
Like many locals, they owned chickens, goats and rabbits.
"We set free all our livestock. We left the tractor, the car, our vegetable patch. Basically everything got left behind. We fled in just what we stood up in," said Galina.
Her mother was also evacuated, but she was already in poor health and died shortly afterwards.
Since August 19 they have been staying at a large temporary reception centre set up by Moscow authorities in what used to be a supermarket, in an area of the Kursk region safe from the fighting, which AFP was able to visit.
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