KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that the Ukrainian army’s invasion of the Kursk region, which has caused more than 100,000 civilians to flee and embarrassed the Kremlin, was an attempt by Kyiv to halt Moscow’s offensive in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbass and thus gain an advantage in possible future peace talks.
After nearly a week of heavy fighting, Russian forces are still trying to respond to Ukraine’s surprise attack, but Putin insisted that Moscow’s army would retain the upper hand.
At a meeting with senior security and defense officials, Putin said the attack, which began on August 6, appeared to reflect Kyiv’s attempt to gain a better negotiating position in possible future talks to end the war.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed for the first time that Ukrainian forces are operating in the Kursk region. In a Telegram post, he praised the country’s soldiers and commanders “for their steadfastness and decisive actions.”
He did not elaborate. He merely indicated that Ukraine would provide humanitarian aid in the region.
A Russian Red Cross worker, with his back to the camera, listens to people evacuated from fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region, at a makeshift dormitory in Kursk, Russia, Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. (AP Photo)
Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS
In a video posted on Zelensky’s Telegram, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian military briefed the president on the situation at the front and said Ukraine controls 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory. This is the first time a Ukrainian military official has publicly commented on the successes of the invasion.
“The troops are fulfilling their tasks. Fighting continues practically along the entire front line. The situation is under our control,” said General Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Putin said Ukraine may have hoped to cause unrest in Russia with the attack, but that goal was not achieved. He claimed the number of volunteers joining the Russian army had increased as a result of the attack. He said Russian forces would continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine regardless.
“It is obvious that the enemy will continue to try to destabilize the situation in the border area in order to destabilize the internal political situation in our country,” Putin said. Russia’s main task is “to expel the enemy from our territory and, together with the border service, to ensure reliable security of the state border,” he said.
The acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, reported to Putin that Ukrainian forces had advanced 12 kilometers into the Kursk region on a 40-kilometer-long front and currently controlled 28 Russian settlements.
Smirnov said the operation killed 12 civilians and wounded 121 others, including 10 children. About 121,000 people have been evacuated or left the fighting-affected areas on their own, he said. The total number of evacuations is 180,000.
It is difficult to track down all the Ukrainian units operating in the region and creating diversionary tactics, Smirnov said, pointing out that some of them were using fake Russian IDs.
The governor of the Belgorod region bordering Kursk also announced the evacuation of people from a district near the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian troops quickly entered the town of Sudzha, about 10 kilometers across the border, after the attack. They reportedly still hold the western part of the town, which is home to a major natural gas filling station.
The Ukrainian operation is shrouded in secrecy and its objectives remain unclear. The spectacular maneuver, which caught Kremlin forces by surprise, stands in contrast to Russia’s relentless efforts in recent months to break through Ukrainian defenses at selected points along the front line in eastern Ukraine.
Russia has experienced previous incursions into its territory during the nearly two-and-a-half-year war, but the advance into the Kursk region was the largest attack on its territory since World War II and a milestone in hostilities. It is also the first time that the Ukrainian army has led an incursion rather than pro-Ukrainian Russian fighters.
The move was a blow to Putin’s efforts to pretend that life in Russia had been largely unaffected by the war. State propaganda sought to downplay the attack by emphasizing the authorities’ efforts to help the region’s residents and sought to divert attention from the military’s failure to prepare for and quickly repel the attack.
Residents of Kursk recorded videos lamenting having to flee the border area, leaving their belongings behind and begging Putin for help, but Russia’s state-controlled media kept any expression of discontent tightly under wraps.
Retired General Andrei Gurulev, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, criticized the military for its inadequate border protection.
“Unfortunately, the Border Patrol group did not have its own intelligence resources,” he said on his messaging app channel. “Nobody likes to see the truth in reports, everyone just wants to hear that everything is OK.”
The fighting in Russia has raised new questions about whether Ukraine is using weapons supplied by NATO members. Some Western countries are reluctant to allow Ukraine to use their military aid to attack Russian territory, fearing it could encourage an escalation that could drag Russia and NATO into war.
Although it is unclear what weapons Ukraine is using across the border, Russian media have widely reported that American Bradley and German Marder armored vehicles are present there. This claim could not be independently verified.
Ukraine has already used US weapons to carry out attacks inside Russia.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in an interview published on Monday that the weapons supplied by his country “should not be used to attack Russia on its territory”.
Meanwhile, German Defense Ministry spokesman Arne Collatz said on Monday that legal experts agree that “international law stipulates that a state that defends itself must also defend itself on the territory of the attacker. This is also clear from our point of view.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that reinforcements sent to the area, supported by air force and artillery, had repelled seven attacks by Ukrainian units near Martynovka, Borki and Korenevo in the past 24 hours.
The ministry said Russian forces had also repelled an attempt by Ukrainian mobile groups to penetrate deep into Russian territory near Kautschuk.
The Russian air force and artillery also attacked concentrations of Ukrainian troops and equipment near Sudzha, Kurilovka, Pekhovo, Lyubimovo and several other settlements, it said. Warplanes and artillery hit Kyiv’s reserves in the Ukrainian region of Sumy across the border, the ministry added.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst at the Finland-based open-source intelligence firm Black Bird Group who is monitoring the war, said the toughest phase of the Ukrainian incursion would likely begin now as Russian reserves enter the fight.
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