Ukraine says it is 'strengthening' its positions in Russia's Kursk region

Photo: Roman Pilipey Agence France-Presse A Ukrainian soldier maintains a Soviet-made T-72 tank in the Sumy region, near the Russian border, on August 12, 2024.

Florent Vergnes – Agence France-Presse in Kiev

Published yesterday at 15:01

• Europe

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that his army was “strengthening” its positions in Russia's Kursk region, more than ten days after launching a surprise large-scale offensive on the ground Russian.

The Russian army, for its part, said it was “repelling” new assaults from kyiv, while continuing to pound several regions of Ukraine, particularly in Donbass (east), where it has the advantage over Kiev's outnumbered forces.

On August 6, the Ukrainian army attacked the Kursk region, seizing, according to Kiev, 82 localities and 1,150 square kilometers during an offensive that surprised Moscow and constitutes the largest foreign military operation on Russian soil since the Second World War.

“General (Oleksandr) Syrsky reported the strengthening of the positions of our forces in the Kursk region and the expansion of the stabilized territory,” Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, following a meeting with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army.

The day before, the military had assured his leader that his troops had advanced “one to three kilometers” and taken prisoners among the Russian soldiers.

The Russian army, which has deployed material and human reinforcements, assured for its part on Saturday that it had “repulsed” Ukrainian assaults near three localities in its region of Kursk, inflicting, according to it, heavy losses on its adversary.

President Vladimir Putin ordered his men several days ago to “expel” Kiev's forces from Russian territory.

Ukrainian anchoring

In the meantime, Kiev's army has anchored on Russian soil, at this stage marking an unprecedented advance since the start of Moscow's large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

At least 12 civilians have been killed and more than a hundred injured since the start of the Ukrainian operation, according to Russian authorities.

In recent days, Kiev has gradually revealed its intentions, while Russia still occupies nearly 20% of its neighbor's territory.

It says it wants to force Moscow to withdraw troops from other parts of the front, create a “buffer zone” to end bombardments on the border, but also use conquered Russian territories to force the Kremlin to enter into “fair” negotiations.

However, discussions between the two parties have been completely blocked since spring 2022.

Faced with the unprecedented advance of Ukrainian forces into Russian territory, several tens of thousands of civilians have already fled — by their own means or with the assistance of local services — the border villages of the Kursk region.

In the neighboring region of Belgorod, the Russian authorities have been alarmed in recent days, announcing on Friday evening that they were blocking access and evacuating five border towns from Monday, while “temporarily” closing access to a sixth.

On the Ukrainian side, the flow of evacuees is also continuing towards the city of Sumy, about 40 km from the common border. The city was also targeted by a Russian attack on Saturday morning, injuring two people, according to the Interior Ministry.

“Dozens of Russian assaults” in the East

At the same time, heavy fighting continues further south, in eastern Ukraine, the epicentre of the conflict where the Russian army has been gaining ground for months.

Moscow has claimed responsibility in recent days for capturing several villages in the direction of the town of Pokrovsk, an important logistical hub on the road to the strongholds of Chassiv Yar and Kostiantynivka.

“Dozens of Russian assaults have been launched on our positions over the past day,” Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday, assuring that his soldiers “are doing everything to destroy the occupier and repel the attacks.” “The situation is under control,” he said.

Still in the Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filachkin announced on Saturday that Russian strikes killed two people and injured two.

Further north, a 49-year-old woman was killed in the early morning in a bombing raid by Moscow's army in the Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor's office.

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