Residents of a border district in southwestern Russia’s Kursk region are still receiving tax bills for homes, cars and land destroyed during last year’s Ukrainian incursion, local media reported Friday.
A Korenevsky district initiative group has formally petitioned Kursk region Governor Alexander Khinshtein asking to review tax obligations on destroyed property, vehicles and land, according to the news outlet Pepel Kursk.
Despite relief measures that include housing certificates for those who lost their permanent residences, residents said the Federal Tax Service (FNS) continues to issue full-year property taxes for homes destroyed in the August-September 2024 attacks.
Pepel shared a photograph of the two-page letter to Khinshtein signed by two members of the district’s initiative group.
The group says their pleas have not been heard by the FNS because their property is still listed in the state real estate registry database despite having been officially deemed uninhabitable.
“In other words, the documents are sufficient to obtain the [housing] certificate but not sufficient to stop the tax from being charged,” the letter reads.
Independent news outlet Govorit Nemoskva reports that residents of Korenevo, Sudzha, Rylsk and other settlements have been lining up at the regional subsidy office in Kursk as early as 5:00 a.m. for once-a-week appointments to check their housing certificate applications status.
Housing certificates can be used to obtain new housing provided that residents give up ownership of the destroyed property, leaving many displaced families in limbo.
Pepel reports similar hurdles with vehicles and land plots. Residents report that they continue to receive tax bills for burned out cars and land that they cannot access because of ongoing security restrictions imposed by the regional emergency authorities.
Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border offensive into the Kursk region in August 2024, managing to occupy large swaths of territory before Russian troops supported by North Korean forces drove them out earlier in 2025.
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