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Russia accuses Ukraine of targeting rescuers in border regions
Russia's Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexey Kostrubitsky has accused Ukrainian forces of deliberately targeting ministry rescuers in Russia's border regions. He reported 33 ministry employees killed and over 300 injured since 2022, and alleged thousands of civilian casualties since 2014. The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia's Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexey Kostrubitsky has accused Ukrainian armed formations of deliberately targeting ministry rescuers responding to attacks in Russia's border regions, as reported by the state-run news agency TASS. The allegation was made at the International Security Forum, where Kostrubitsky described the reported strikes as “manifestations of terrorism.”
Coverage comparison
TASS, the sole source of these statements, reported Kostrubitsky's remarks in two separate articles. The first focused on the alleged deliberate targeting of rescuers, while the second detailed casualty figures among ministry personnel. Both reports rely entirely on Kostrubitsky's statements, with no independent verification or response from Ukrainian officials. The coverage presents only the Russian official position.
Key claims
Rescuer casualties since 2022: Kostrubitsky stated that 33 employees of Russia's Emergencies Ministry have been killed in the line of duty as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks since 2022, with more than 300 injured. This claim, reported exclusively by TASS, has not been independently verified.
Earlier Donetsk casualties: The deputy minister also claimed that from 2014 to 2022, 97 ministry employees were injured and 21 killed in the Donetsk People's Republic due to attacks by Ukrainian forces. Again, this information comes solely from the same official and has not been corroborated.
Alleged deliberate targeting: Kostrubitsky asserted that Ukrainian forces are deliberately targeting rescuers arriving at the scenes of attacks in Russia's border regions, including Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk. He characterized these actions as "war crimes" and "terrorist attacks," according to TASS's account.
Civilian casualties since 2014: The deputy minister also stated that thousands of civilians have been injured or killed as a result of the actions of Ukrainian militants since 2014, and that such attacks have "no statute of limitations." No specific evidence was provided in the TASS reports.
Perspectives
This article is based on a single official source—Russian Deputy Emergencies Minister Alexey Kostrubitsky—as relayed by the state-owned TASS news agency. The claims have not been independently verified, and no response from Ukrainian authorities has been reported. The Ukrainian government has not yet commented on these specific allegations. Historically, both sides in the conflict have accused each other of attacking civilians and first responders, and many claims have been impossible to independently confirm.
How this outlet told it
TASS — English
Framing: Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian Emergencies Ministry — condemnatory
Facts Included:
33 employees of Russia's Emergencies Ministry killed since 2022
Over 300 employees of Russia's Emergencies Ministry injured since 2022
97 employees injured and 21 killed in Donetsk People's Republic from 2014 to 2022
AI-extracted; can misattribute a claim — see Methodology.
Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimThirty-three employees of Russia's Emergencies Ministry have been killed in the line of duty as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks since 2022, while more than 300 have been injured.
Claim97 employees of the ministry were injured and 21 killed in the Donetsk People's Republic alone as a result of attacks by Ukrainian forces from 2014 to 2022.
ClaimUkrainian forces are deliberately targeting Emergencies Ministry rescuers arriving at the scenes of Ukrainian attacks, including in Russia's border regions.