President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had launched an incursion into Russian territory to “restore justice” and put pressure on Moscow’s armed forces, his first acknowledgement of Kyiv’s surprise offensive in the western Kursk region.
Moscow’s armed forces were in the sixth day of intense fighting against Kiev’s greatest idea on Russian territory since the beginning of the war, leaving parts of southwestern Russia vulnerable until reinforcements arrived.
Russian authorities promptly evacuated residents and imposed sweeping security measures in three border regions on Saturday after the attack caught the Kremlin by surprise, according to military analysts. Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow, also sent more troops to its border with Ukraine and accused Kyiv of violating its airspace.
In his evening video address, Zelensky said he had discussed the operation with Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and promised to respond accordingly after Russia began its large-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.
“Today I received several reports from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi on the front lines and our measures to expand the war into the aggressor’s territory,” he said late Saturday.
“Ukraine is proving that it is indeed capable of restoring justice and is ensuring that exactly the pressure that is needed is applied: pressure on the aggressor.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday it had destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones and four Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles overnight over the Kursk region, as well as 18 drones over other Russian regions frequently attacked by Ukraine.
In a statement, she called the ground attack “barbaric” and said it made no military sense.
Ukraine has occupied at most a few dozen square kilometers of Russian territory without making any claims to it, while Russia controls more than 100,000 square kilometers of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Wednesday that the attacks had been stopped but that Russia had not pushed Ukrainian forces back across the border.
Russian military bloggers said the situation had stabilized after the Russian reinforcements, but said Ukraine quickly built up his strength.
INJURIES AND EVACUATIONS
Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region from the Kursk region this summer and that such attacks deserved a Ukrainian response.
“Artillery, mortars, drones. We are also seeing rocket attacks and each of these attacks deserves a fair response,” the Ukrainian president said.
Officials in the city of Kursk had previously said 13 people were injured in the city when debris from a destroyed Ukrainian rocket fell on a nine-story residential building.
A photo posted by the mayor of Kursk showed flames blazing from a destroyed apartment block surrounded by charred rubble.
It is unclear whether there was further damage. Moscow and Kyiv rarely disclose the full extent of the damage caused by the attacks on them, unless there are injuries or damage to residential buildings.
Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of Kursk, ordered local authorities to speed up the evacuation of civilians in the affected areas. On Saturday, Russian state news agency TASS reported that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated.
Kiev and Moscow deny that their attacks during the war were aimed at civilians. Thousands of people have fallen victim to the war, millions of Ukrainians have had to flee their homes, and there is no end to the war in sight.
Russian military bloggers report that fighting is taking place up to 20 kilometers deep into the Kursk region, leading some of them to wonder why Ukraine was able to advance into the Kursk region so easily.
A video from the “I Want to Live” project, which is linked to Ukrainian military intelligence, shows several dozen Russian soldiers, including fighters from Chechnya, who were allegedly captured in Kursk. Reuters was initially unable to confirm the video.
After a father and his four-year-old son were killed in what Zelensky said was a Russian airstrike using a North Korean missile near Kyiv, the Ukrainian president asked Western partners for “strong decisions” that would allow his troops to strike deep inside Russia with Western weapons.
“If Ukraine’s long-range capabilities no longer have limits, this war will definitely have limits,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said she had appealed to the United Nations to condemn Ukraine’s actions in Kursk.
In a Telegram post, Moskalkova said she was calling on the UN human rights commissioner to “take action to prevent gross mass violations of human rights.”
