Russian military says it is halting deep advances by Ukrainian forces into Russia

Photo: Roman Pilipey Agence France-Presse A Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier drives along a road near sunflower fields on Sunday in the Sumy region of Ukraine, which borders Russia

Ania Tsoukanova – Agence France-Presse in Kiev

Published yesterday at 20:49 Updated at 0:55

• Europe

“Thousands” of Ukrainian troops are taking part in the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, according to a senior Ukrainian official, with Russia saying it is halting deep advances by Kiev’s troops into its territory.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had prevented “attempts to break through” by enemy “mobile armored groups” near the towns of Tolpino, Zhuravli and Obshchi Kolodez, located about 30 kilometers as the crow flies from Ukraine.

The ministry added that these advances had been halted by air, drone and artillery strikes and the dispatch of reserves from the “North” group, deployed in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region (northeast).

The Russian military also claims to have struck Ukrainian troops with missiles and artillery near the towns of Sudja, Korenevo, Staraya Sorochitsa and Borki, as well as preventing a breakthrough in the Belovskiy district, further east.

After months of retreating in the face of Russian troops on the eastern front, Ukraine launched an unprecedented large-scale operation in the Kursk border region on Tuesday, taking control of several towns there, according to analysts.

“The goal is to stretch the enemy's positions, inflict maximum losses, destabilize the situation in Russia […] and transfer the war to Russian territory,” a Ukrainian security official told AFP on Saturday evening, speaking under cover of of anonymity.

“Moving the war”

He assured that “thousands” of Ukrainian soldiers were participating in the operation.

The governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, acknowledged on Sunday that the situation was “difficult.”

For his part, Ramzan Kadyrov, who leads the Russian region of Chechnya, declared the same day that a unit of his Chechen fighters, considered the most brutal and hardened soldiers in the country, was active in the Kursk region.

AFP journalists saw dozens of Ukrainian armored vehicles on Sunday on the roads of the Ukrainian region of Sumy (north), bordering that of Kursk.

These vehicles, of different types, are marked with a white triangle which clearly serves to identify the troops taking part in this offensive.

After days of silence on the operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged its existence for the first time in his daily address on Saturday evening, explaining that kyiv was seeking to “move the war to the territory of the aggressor.”

Faced with this attack, Russia has dispatched reinforcements and established an “anti-terrorist” regime in three regions bordering Ukraine, including Kursk.

Russian pressure in the East

Russian authorities announced on Saturday that they had evacuated more than 76,000 people from the area affected by the incursion to “safe locations.” Ukraine, for its part, has requested the evacuation of at least 20,000 civilians from the Sumy region.

On the night of Sunday to Monday, Russian forces also “destroyed” a total of 18 Ukrainian attack drones in three regions of western Russia (Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh), according to a statement from the Ministry of Defense posted on Telegram, which did not mention any damage or injuries.

On Sunday evening, in Ukraine, a fire broke out in the cooling system of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia, which is being occupied by Russian armed forces. kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of responsibility.

The IAEA said “there is no impact on nuclear safety,” while once again denouncing “irresponsible attacks that […] increase the danger of a nuclear accident.” The head of the Russian administration in the region, Vladimir Rogov, said early Monday that the fire had been “completely extinguished.”

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has since waged a relentless offensive, occupying large swathes of the east and south of the country and subjecting Ukrainian cities to daily artillery, missile and drone attacks.

According to the Ukrainian official interviewed by AFP, the incursion was initially aimed at diverting Russian forces from the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Donbass (east) to ease their pressure on Kiev's army, which is smaller and lacking in weapons.

But, for the moment, it does not seem to have changed the situation on the eastern front, admitted the official.

“Their pressure in the east continues, they are not withdrawing their troops from this area”, even if “the intensity” of the attacks Russians have “dropped a little bit.”

Western allies warned, according to kyiv

The attack, however, “caught the Russians off guard” and “really boosted our morale, that of the Ukrainian army, the state and society” exhausted by two and a half years of invasion, continued this official.

Sooner or later, Russia will “stop” the Ukrainian units in the Kursk region but, if “after a certain time, it does not manage to retake these territories, they can be used for political purposes”, for example, during peace negotiations, he judged.

He claimed that Russia was preparing a massive missile attack against “decision-making centers” in Ukraine in response to this offensive.

Ukraine’s Western allies were warned about the incursion, he said.

“Given that Western weaponry is being actively used” in the operation, “our Western partners indirectly participated in its planning,” he said.

The official also said that the military involved in the incursion was respecting international humanitarian law and had no intention of annexing the areas they currently occupy.