By Oleksandr Kozhukhar
KYIV (Reuters) -President Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were fighting in the surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk, as attacks on the border region continued with authorities rushing to evacuate people.
Moscow’s forces were in their sixth day of intense battles against Kyiv’s largest incursion into Russian territory since the start of the war, which left southwestern parts of Russia vulnerable before reinforcement started arriving.
In a sign of the gravity of the situation, Russia imposed a sweeping security regime in three border regions on Saturday, while Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow, sent more troops to its border with Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of violating its air space.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said he had discussed the operation with top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, vowing to restore justice after Russia launched the full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbour in February 2022.
“Today, I received several reports from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi regarding the front lines and our actions to push the war onto the aggressor’s territory,” Zelenskiy said. “Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor.”
Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday it had destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones and four Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles overnight over the Kursk region, and 18 drones over other Russian regions that Ukraine frequently attacks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin cast the Ukrainian attack – which military analysts say caught the Kremlin off-guard – as a major provocation.
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Wednesday the attacks had been halted, but Russia has not pushed the Ukrainian forces back over the border.
Russian military bloggers said the situation had stabilised after Russia’s reinforcements, though they said Ukraine was swiftly building up forces.
INJURIES AND EVACUATIONS
Early on Sunday, Kursk officials said 13 people were injured in the city after debris from a destroyed Ukrainian missile fell onto a nine-storey residential building.
It was not clear whether there was further damage. Moscow and Kyiv rarely disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by attacks on them unless there are injuries or damage to residential buildings.
Alexei Smirnov, Kursk’s acting governor, ordered local authorities to speed up the evacuation of civilians in areas at risk. On Saturday, Russia’s TASS state news agency reported that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated.
Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians in their attacks in the war, which has killed thousands of people and displaced millions of Ukrainians, and has no end in sight.
Russian military bloggers say fighting is taking place as deep as 20 km (12 miles) inside the Kursk region, prompting some of them to question why Ukraine was able to pierce the Kursk region so easily.
After a father and his 4-year-old son were killed in a Russian air attack on Kyiv region on Sunday, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak vowed more attacks on Russia’s military infrastructure, saying Moscow does not accept “other arguments.”
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said she had sent an appeal to the United Nations demanding it condemn Ukraine’s actions in Kursk.
In a Telegram post, Moskalkova said she was asking the U.N. Human Rights commissioner to “take measures to prevent gross mass violations of human rights”.