According to the Ministry’s statement, the two officials discussed at the meeting all important humanitarian issues, including the situation in the region.

On September 16th, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrei Sibiga asked his staff to issue official invitations to the UN and the ICRC “to join humanitarian efforts in the Kursk region.” The minister stated that Ukraine is ready to “facilitate this work and demonstrate its adherence to international humanitarian law.”

The spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, described this offer as a provocation and assumed that it will be ignored by the recipients and will receive an impartial evaluation.

On Tuesday, Red Cross spokeswoman in Moscow Galina Balzamova said the organization would be willing to send its teams to areas occupied by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk region on the condition that both sides, Moscow and Kiev, provide them with the relevant security measures.

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