Photo: Roman Pilipey Agence France-Presse This photograph shows houses destroyed following recent Russian bombings in the village of Loknya, in the Sumy region, near the border with Russia, on August 13, 2024.
Florent Vergnes – Agence France-Presse and Jonathan Brown – Agence France-Presse
Published at 15:04 Updated at 15:27
- Europe
Ukraine, which said on Wednesday that it was “making good progress” in the Russian border region of Kursk, assured that it wanted to create a “buffer zone” there to protect itself from bombing, as well as “humanitarian corridors” to help, according to it, Russian civilians.
On August 6, Kiev's forces rushed into this region, taking Russian troops by surprise and carrying out the largest incursion by a foreign army onto Russian soil since the end of the Second World War.
“We continue to advance in the Kursk region. Since the beginning of the day, we have covered between one and two kilometers in different areas,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram, while reporting “more than 100 Russian servicemen captured” on Wednesday.
In the evening, he repeated that the Ukrainian military was advancing “well.” “We are achieving our strategic objective.”
On the eighth day of the attack, the Russian army declared that it had foiled “attempts” by Ukrainian mobile groups to break through in depth near five localities in the Kursk region, one of which, Levchinka, is located 35 km as the crow flies from Ukraine.
Supported by aircraft, drones and artillery, it claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on the Ukrainians.
It also released images showing five individuals presented as captured Ukrainian soldiers and others showing four bloodied corpses of soldiers.
Photo: Roman Pilipey Agence France-Presse
For their part, Ukrainian forces used long-range drones to target four airfields in central and western Russia — in Kursk, Voronezh, Savasleika and Borisoglebsk —, told AFP a source within the security services in kyiv.
Tens of thousands displaced
Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said Ukraine was seeking to create a “buffer zone” in the Kursk region to protect its border population from Russian bombing.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000In May, Vladimir Putin also presented the Kremlin’s offensive against the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv as a measure aimed at establishing a “buffer zone” to halt, ultimately unsuccessfully, Ukrainian strikes in Russian border regions.
In the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Kursk, a state of emergency was declared on Wednesday due to Ukrainian bombing.
Read also
- Ukraine claims new advances in Russian territory
- Is Ukraine Turning the Tide of the War?
The Ukrainian incursion has already caused the departure of more than 120,000 people, according to Russia. At least 12 civilians have been killed and more than a hundred injured, the authorities of the Kursk region announced on Monday, without providing any new figures since.
According to the Ukrainian Minister of the Interior, “more than 20,000 people” have already been evacuated in the region of Sumy, which borders that of Kursk.
Ukraine, through the voice of a deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, announced on Wednesday that its army planned to open humanitarian corridors in the Kursk region to facilitate the evacuation of civilians “both towards Russia and Ukraine”.
“Intense” fighting
On Tuesday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky reported “difficult and intense” fighting in the Kursk region and claimed that 74 localities were under Kiev’s control and that “hundreds” of Russians had been taken prisoner.
The Russian authorities, for their part, acknowledged on Monday the loss of 28 localities and Ukrainian territorial gains extending over an area 40 kilometers wide and 12 kilometers deep.
According to calculations made by AFP on Tuesday from Russian sources relayed by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), an American think tank, Ukrainian troops have advanced 800 km2 in this region.
On the Ukrainian side of the border, residents of the village of Iounakivka interviewed by AFP journalists said they had no intention of leaving despite repeated calls from the authorities.
“A horse, two pigs and six dogs,” listed an elderly woman to explain why she wanted to stay despite the bombing.
At a border crossing, AFP saw a steady stream of Ukrainian tanks entering the Kursk region on Wednesday.
“Dilemma” for Putin
Speaking for the first time on the subject, US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the Ukrainian military operation created “a real dilemma for Putin ».
After several complicated months on the eastern front, the Ukrainian troops seem to have found a second wind thanks to this unexpected success.
On the streets of Moscow, Olga Raznoglazova says she is “very worried.” On vacation in the Russian capital, she says she lives about thirty kilometers from the Kursk nuclear power plant but plans to return home.
Roman, a 41-year-old Russian working in the merchant navy, assures that only a “small group of saboteurs” armed by the West and NATO have entered the region and that the Russian army “will kill them, and that’s it.”