RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine is trying to undermine Russian stability with its incursion into the south of the country and warns that Ukraine will receive “a worthy response”.
Last week, Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border and swept across western parts of the Kursk region. The incursion is Ukraine’s biggest across the border since the start of Russia’s war in the country in 2022.
Apparently caught by surprise, Moscow has hit back militarily by deploying its own troops to quash the incursion. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that additional forces and resources had arrived in Kursk, without elaborating on the numbers.
“Heavy tracked vehicles are being loaded onto automobile trailers for prompt delivery to the areas where Ukrainian Armed Forces formations are being blocked and to ensure the safety of the road surface,” the military reported.
On Monday, Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyii, said Kyiv controls about 1,000sq km (386sq miles) of Kursk, according to a video excerpt of his report shared by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Telegram.
Monday was also the first time Zelenskyy confirmed that Ukrainian military forces are operating inside Kursk. In his nightly address the president said war was now coming back to Russia after Moscow had taken fighting to other countries.
Earlier in the day, Kursk Governor Alexei Smirnov told Putin that six days of Ukrainian ground attacks on his region had resulted in the loss of 28 settlements, and the incursion was about 12km deep and 40km wide.
He said 12 civilians had been killed and 121,000 people were evacuated or left the areas affected by fighting on their own. The total planned number of evacuations is 180,000.
On Monday, a new evacuation order was also issued in Russia’s Belgorod region as its Krasnaya Yaruga district feared an incursion by Ukrainian forces, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor.
Krasnaya Yaruga is located in the northwest of Belgorod and borders Kursk.
Putin said at a televised meeting: “The losses of the Ukrainian armed forces are increasing dramatically for them, including among the most combat-ready units, units that the enemy is transferring to our border.”
