Russia began moving thousands more people from its border regions on Thursday after Ukraine said it was advancing deeper into the country in a lightning incursion aimed at forcing Moscow to slow its advance along the rest of the front.
The biggest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since the second World War began on August 6th when thousands of Ukrainian troops broke into the Kursk region in an embarrassment for the Russian military.
Supported by drones, heavy artillery and tanks, Ukrainian units have since carved out a sliver of the world’s biggest nuclear power and battles were ongoing along a front about 18km inside Russian territory on Thursday.
Kursk’s acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, said that the Glushkov district, which has a population of 20,000, was being evacuated. At least 200,000 people have so far been ,moved from the border regions, according to Russian data.
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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that his forces had advanced a few kilometres and that the goal of replenishing an ‘exchange fund’ of prisoners of war was being achieved. One Ukrainian official said Kyiv was carving out a buffer zone to protect its population against attack.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had shot down Ukrainian drones over the neighbouring Belgorod region of Russia and that Sukhoi-34 bombers had pummeled Ukrainian positions in Kursk. Russia’s defence ministry also reported intense battles along the Ukraine front, and said that its troops had taken better positions at several points.
While the Ukrainian attack has embarrassed Moscow, revealed the weakness of its border defences and changed the public narrative of the war, Russian officials said what they cast as a Ukrainian “invasion” would not change the course of the war.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has been advancing for most of the year along the 1000km front in Ukraine for much of the year and has a vast numerical superiority. It controls about 18 per cent Ukraine.
[ Russia strikes back at Ukrainian forces in Kursk region using missiles and dronesOpens in new window ]
The Ukrainian incursion into Russia has yielded its biggest battlefield gains since 2022.
Major General Apti Alaudinov, who commands Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces, said that 12,000 Ukrainian troops had crossed into Russia. Alaudinov said the Ukrainian forces would be ejected.
By bringing the war to Russia, Mr Zelenskiy faces the risk of weakening Kyiv’s defences along the front in Ukraine while Russia has already sent in thousands of reserves in a bid to expel the Ukrainian soldiers.
And if Ukraine wants to hold the Russian territory it has taken, it will need to build a sophisticated logistics operation to support its forces, military analysts said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said on Thursday it shot down all 29 Russia-launched drones over eight Ukrainian regions during an overnight attack, which officials said caused minor damage.
Russia also launched three Kh-59 guided missiles during the attack, the air force said in a statement.
The governor of the central region of Cherkasy said debris damaged windows in one private business, while the governors of the Kyiv, Poltava and Kirovohrad regions reported no hits to infrastructure or casualties.
The governor of the southern Mykolaiv region said the air force shot down five drones there without offering details on damage.
Eight more drones were downed over the southern region of Kherson, its governor said. Various Russian attacks in this region killed one person and injured 13 more over the past day, he said. - Reuters
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