The authorities of the western region Kursk of Russia have begun setting up concrete shelters to help protect civilians amid the incursion of Ukrainian forces into it, its acting regional governor said Thursday.

Russian forces are fighting Ukrainian forces in Kursk, which is located on the border with Ukrainefollowing the Aug. 6 cross-border attack on the Russian region by thousands of Kiev troops, which resulted in the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from the region.

“According to my instructions, the administration of the city of Kursk identified important points for the placement of modular concrete shelters — in crowded places,” noted the acting governor of Kursk Alexei Smirnoff in a Telegram post.

About 60 bus stops will be equipped with them, he added.

Smirnoff released a photo showing one of these concrete structures being delivered by a truck. The population of the city of Kursk is estimated at about 450,000 people.

The Russian official also noted that shelters will also be placed in two other cities, Zheleznogorsk and Kurchatov. The Kursk nuclear power plant is located in the latter. Russia has accused Ukraine of planning an attack on it, which Kiev denies.

The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi will visit this station “in the next week”, an IAEA spokesman said today.

Separately, a Russian official said today that Russian forces yesterday prevented Ukrainian soldiers from infiltrating Russian territory on the border with the western Bryansk region, about 240 kilometers from the battleground in Kursk.

Meanwhile, Russian forces are pushing forward with their own offensive in eastern Ukraine, where they seek to bring the Donetsk region under their full control.