Ukraine's Zelenskyy says further advances made in Russia's Kursk region
Governor of Russia's border region of Belgorod declares regionwide state of emergency
Ukraine's forces advanced further into Russia's Kursk region on Wednesday as Kyiv said its gains would provide a strategic buffer zone to protect its border areas from Russian attacks.
Kyiv's surge into Russian territory last week caught Moscow by surprise. Russian forces that began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had been grinding out steady gains all year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met top officials to discuss the humanitarian situation and possible establishment of military administrations in an occupied area that Ukraine says exceeds 1,000 square kilometres.
"We continue to advance further in the Kursk region," Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram, "from one to two km in various areas since the start of the day."
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Later, in his nightly address, Zelenskyy referred to the growing number of Russian prisoners of war taken in the Kursk region who could be exchanged for Ukrainian fighters.
"Our advance in the Kursk region is going well today — we are reaching our strategic goal. The 'exchange fund' for our state has also been significantly replenished."
Ukraine's Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said the creation of a "buffer zone" was "designed to protect our border communities from daily enemy attacks."
Russia has been pummelling Ukraine with strikes launched from adjacent border territories, including the Kursk region.
Ukraine complains its defence against such attacks has been hamstrung by the need to respect Western countries' concerns about using their weapons for incursions into Russia's hinterland rather than against Russian forces in occupied Ukraine. Zelenskyy once more urged Western allies to permit long-range missile strikes into Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to expel the Ukrainian troops. He says they aim — with Western backing — to give Kyiv a stronger hand in possible future ceasefire talks. But more than a week of intense battles have so far failed to oust them.
"The situation remains difficult," said Yuri Podolyaka, an influential Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
Ukraine's General Staff said Kyiv hit four Russian military airfields overnight in the Russian regions of Voronezh, Kursk and Nizhniy Novgorod, targeting fuel stores and aerial weapons. Zelenskyy called the attack "timely" and "accurate."
The aim of the long-range drone strike was to undermine Russia's ability to attack Ukraine with glide bombs, a Ukrainian security source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Ukraine's military said it had destroyed a Russian Su-34 aircraft.
Russia said it had shot down 117 of the Ukrainian drones as well as four missiles. The Russian Defence Ministry posted a video on Telegram that it said showed Sukhoi Su-34 bombers striking Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region.
Later, Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks inside the Kursk region, including at Russkoye Porechnoye, 18 kilometres from the border. Some pro-Russian war bloggers said the front has been stabilized, while state television said Moscow's forces were turning the tide.
Russia's National Guard said it was beefing up security at the Kursk nuclear power plant, located just 35 kilometres from the fighting.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's border region of Belgorod, declared a regionwide state of emergency.
Russia says it has already evacuated around 200,000 people from the border zone. The acting governor of the Kursk region late on Wednesday said on Telegram that residents of the border settlement of Glushkovo were ordered to evacuate.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Kyiv would open humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians toward both Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said Kyiv would also arrange access for international humanitarian organizations, likely to include the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations.
Incursion carries major risks
The unprecedented incursion carries major risks for Russia, Ukraine and the West, which is keen to avoid a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance that has helped arm Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden said U.S. officials were in constant touch with Kyiv over the incursion, although the White House said Washington had not received advance notice and had no involvement.
Russian officials say Ukraine's Western backers must have known of the attack. "Of course they are involved," lawmaker Maria Butina told Reuters.
The offensive could leave Ukrainian forces more exposed on other parts of the front, where Russia has been slowly adding to the 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory it now controls.
The heaviest fighting is still in the Donetsk region, and Zelenskyy said his forces there would receive more weapons than planned from the next Western support package.
Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that the Russian town of Sudzha, a trans-shipment hub for Russian natural gas flowing to Europe via Ukraine, was fully under Ukrainian control. Natural gas was still flowing on Wednesday.
"Sudzha is under Ukrainian control. However, Ukraine has no intention of claiming someone else's land," the Kyiv Foreign Ministry said on X.