Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has assured that the offensive launched last week in the Russian border region of Kursk is advancing in several areas and that in some places of the front it has advanced by one or two kilometers since the beginning of the day.
“We have captured more than 100 Russian soldiers during this period,” Zelensky added in a message posted on social media, referring to an update on the situation provided by his commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Although Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhyi said Tuesday that Ukraine is not interested in seizing territory in the Kursk region, Tykhyi said Ukraine needs to protect itself from Russian attacks and keep Putin's forces away from the border areas that Russia is using to attack Ukraine. Tykhyi also noted that Ukrainian operations in the Kursk region prevent the Russian military from transferring additional military units to the Donetsk region, which complicates Russian military logistics.
This Wednesday, Ukrainian television broadcast The first images of the Russian city of Sudja, in the Kursk region, which Kiev's army claims to have completely taken as part of its cross-border offensive. These images show Ukrainian soldiers removing Russian flags and hanging up the Ukrainian one.
The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk was supported on Wednesday by Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, who defends that Ukraine has the right to defend itself and to conduct a military incursion into the Russian region of Kursk. “Ukraine has the right to defend itself and it is clear that it can conduct its operation in Kursk,” Orpo said at a joint press conference in the Finnish capital with his Estonian counterpart Kristen Michal.
For its part, Russia claims that Russian forces have not fully stabilized the situation in Kursk Oblast, despite ongoing efforts to stabilize the front line and repel Ukrainian attacks.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian military command may withdraw Russian irregular units from the Donetsk region to counter the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.
The governor of Russia’s border region of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, has declared a state of emergency across the region. The Ukrainian military counterattacked across the border after Russian forces halted their advance in the Kharkiv region, according to The Guardian. “The situation in the Belgorod region (located below the Kursk region) remains extremely difficult and tense,” Gladkov said, adding that he was calling on Vladimir Putin’s government to declare a federal emergency in a video posted on Telegram.
Gladkov said that over the past 24 hours there have been 23 drone attacks in Belgorod. “The shelling and shrapnel damaged a church, 14 houses, an administrative building, several vehicles and a gas pipeline.”
Russian sources said between Monday and Tuesday that soldiers from the Sarmat battalion of the Russian Pyatnachka brigade and the Russian Volunteer Corps had recently moved to the Kursk region. According to ISW, the Russian authorities appear to be relying heavily on Russian recruits and elements of some regular and irregular military units from less critical sectors of the frontline to confront the ongoing Ukrainian incursion.
Since the beginning of the incursion, dozens of people have died and some 120,000 people have had to be evacuated from the region. According to Europa Press, Ukraine has already managed to take control of about 1,000 square kilometers, as reported by its authorities.