Kursk Region Establishes First Ombudsman for Ukraine War Veterans' Rights
The Kursk region has created a new ombudsman position to protect the rights of veterans who served in the Ukraine conflict, appointing retired colonel Maxim Kalutskhikh.
In a weekly regional government meeting, Governor Alexander Khinshtein declared that Kursk is the first Russian region to formally introduce a veterans' rights ombudsman. The position will be filled by Maxim Kalutskhikh, a retired colonel who served in Ukraine between 2022 and 2023 and currently acts as deputy chairman of the local veterans association. Kalutskhikh is an alumnus of the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School and has experience in an elite FSB unit.
The ombudsman's duties will include guiding families through government paperwork, securing benefits, and resolving issues such as medical board decisions, payment delays, kinship verification for deceased soldiers, and erroneous AWOL classifications. Previously, human-rights ombudspeople in other regions handled similar complaints, but Kursk's move marks the first systematic appointment of a specialist for war veterans.
Why it matters
It shows a new regional effort in Russia to address bureaucratic hurdles faced by Ukraine war veterans.
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