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Ukrainian troops have advanced 30 kilometers into Russian territory, the deepest and most significant incursion since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The offensive in the Kursk region entered its sixth day, with Russian troops engaging Ukrainian forces near the villages of Tolpino and Obshikologedz, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Kiev of “intimidate[ing]peaceful citizens of Russia”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky directly acknowledged the attack for the first time in a speech last night, saying Russia had launched 2,000 cross-border attacks from Kursk this summer.
“Artillery fire, mortars, drones. We also recorded missile attacks, and every such attack deserves a fair response,” Zelenskiy told the nation in an evening address in Kiev.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that thousands of troops were involved in the operation, far exceeding the small incursion initially reported by Russian border guards.
While Ukrainian-backed sabotage groups have launched occasional cross-border incursions, the Kursk Offensive marked the largest coordinated assault by Kiev’s conventional forces on Russian territory.
“We are on the offensive. Our goal is to expand the enemy’s positions, inflict maximum damage and destabilize the situation for Russia because they cannot protect their borders,” the official said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its troops had “thwarted an attempt by enemy armored vehicle maneuvers to penetrate deep into Russian territory.”
But the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported that Kiev’s troops had penetrated deep into the Kursk border area and were fighting with Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obushchikolodez, which are about 25 kilometers and 30 kilometers from the Russian-Ukrainian border.
Video footage verified by the BBC and circulated online also showed a Russian attack near the village of Levshinka, about 25 kilometers from the border.
Ukrainian troops claim to have captured a number of settlements in the Kursk region. In the village of Guevo, about 3 km from Russian territory, soldiers filmed themselves taking down a Russian flag from an administrative building.
Video footage showed Ukrainian troops taking administrative buildings in Sverdlikovo and Poloz, while heavy fighting was reported in Souja, a town of about 5,000 people.
Ukrainian troops have filmed themselves outside a large gas facility in Sudja, which is involved in the delivery of gas from Russia through Ukraine to the European Union. Despite the war, the delivery continues.
In Sumy Oblast, which borders Kursk Oblast, BBC reporters witnessed a steady stream of armored personnel carriers and tanks heading towards Russia.
The armored convoys bore white triangular insignia, seemingly to distinguish them from equipment used inside Ukraine. Meanwhile, aerial photos showed Ukrainian tanks operating inside Russian territory.
Photos analysed by the BBC also show Russia building new defences around the Kursk nuclear power plant. Ukrainian forces engaged in battle at Obushchi-Kolodze are less than 50 kilometres (31 miles) from the facility.
Comparing satellite images of the same location taken yesterday with images from a few days ago, the images show several newly constructed trenches nearby, the closest being about 8 kilometers (5 miles) from the factory.
Russia said it had evacuated 76,000 people from the border region of Kursk, where authorities have declared a state of emergency.
Acting regional governor Alexey Smirnov also said that debris from a downed Ukrainian missile landed on a multi-story building in Kursk, the regional capital, late on Saturday, injuring 15 people.
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko welcomed the move, saying “this action brings us closer to peace than a hundred peace summits.”
“When Russia needs to fight back on its own territory, when Russian people are fleeing, when people care, this is the only way to show them that this war has to stop,” he told the BBC.
The Kursk offensive follows weeks of Russian military advances eastwards, with the Kremlin’s forces having captured a string of villages in the eastern region.
Some analysts believe that the attack on the Kursk was part of Russia’s effort to force it to withdraw its troops from eastern Ukraine and ease pressure on Ukraine’s defenses.
But Ukrainian officials told AFP there had been little let-up in Russian operations in the east so far.
Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the offensive a “major provocation.”
Meanwhile, emergency services in the Kiev region said a man and his four-year-old son were killed in a missile attack overnight near the capital.
Air Force officials said air defenses also destroyed 53 of 57 Russian attack drones launched in a nighttime airstrike that also involved four North Korean-made missiles, they said.
Russia has been forced to turn to the isolated Asian nation to replenish its munitions, with the United States claiming Pyongyang has sent it large quantities of military hardware.
Separately, officials in the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia oblast said a fire broke out at a nuclear power plant in the region on Sunday.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-appointed governor of Zaporizhia, claimed the fire had started after shelling by Ukrainian troops. He said there had been no surge in radiation levels around the plant.
Russia’s state TASS news agency reported that the main fire at the plant was put out in the early hours of Monday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, said in a statement released on X that inspectors on site saw “strong black smoke” coming from the northern part of the nuclear facility, but stressed that there was “no impact” on nuclear safety.
President Zelensky posted on social media that Russian troops set fire to the factory.
The nuclear power plant has been under the control of Russian troops and officials since 2022. The plant has not produced electricity for more than two years, and all six reactors have been in cold shutdown since April.
(BBC News)
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