Russia has evacuated more than 76,000 people from border areas in the western region of Kursk as Ukraine continues to push deeper in its cross-border offensive, Russian media reported today.
‘More than 76,000 people have been temporarily relocated to safe places,’ the state-run TASS news agency reported, citing a local official at a press briefing.
Russia appears to have been caught off guard by a daring incursion into the southwestern Kursk region since Tuesday, though Ukraine has stopped short of formally claiming responsibility.
On Tuesday, Pro-Kyiv forces stormed into the region with around 1,000 troops and more than two dozen armoured vehicles and tanks, according to the Russian army.
It appears to be the most significant Ukrainian attack into Russia since the war erupted, with analysts suggesting Kyiv‘s troops had advanced up to several miles into Russia.
Russia has desperately tried to fend off the offensive with artillery, airstrikes and troops, but the extent of their success is unclear.
Temporary shelters have been set up in the meantime across eight regions of Russia to house thousands of evacuees now displaced by the incursion in what officials have called a ‘slap in the face for the president’.
Ukrainian servicemen ride a BMP-1 infantry fighting vehicle near the border in Sumy, Ukraine
People from the border districts of Kursk region board buses bound for Moscow, on Friday
Residents from Kursk amass at a train station in Tula amid large evacuations
Ukrainian tanks roll through the Sumy region of Ukraine on Saturday
Ukrainian servicemen ride a military vehicle near the border with Russia on Saturday
Ukraine launched the incursion across the Russian border around 5am GMT
Putin (pictured on Friday) has been forced to relocate some 76,000 Russians in the region
Zelensky (pictured July 19) has avoided claiming responsibility for the push into Russia
A headquarters for ‘providing assistance to the population in the border areas… has been deployed and continues to operate in the city of Kursk,’ spokesman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s interdepartmental operational headquarters Artyom Sharov told reporters today.
‘Resettling residents to safer places has been a priority of its work,’ he continued.
According to TASS, as many as 60 such complexes are now being used to house thousands of displaced people as the offensive shows no sign of stopping.
Struggling to put down the advance, Russia said it was launching a ‘counter-terrorism’ operation, rushing in reserves and extra equipment.
Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said late last night it was starting operations in Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions to ‘ensure the safety’ of residents and ‘supress the threat of terrorist acts’.
Residents were pictured bundling into trains as they taken far away from the conflict zones as tanks, jets and troops roll in.
‘The war has come to us,’ one woman told AFP after arriving at a Moscow train station on Friday, declining to give her name.
While Ukraine has not officially confirmed its role, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Russia needed to ‘feel’ the consequences of its invasion.
‘Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,’ Zelensky said, without directly referring to the offensive.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, says Kyiv’s forces have pressed deeper into Kursk with ‘rapid advances’, reportedly going up to 20 miles beyond the border in a matter of days.
‘The lack of a coherent Russian response to the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk… and the reported rate of Ukrainian advance indicates that Ukrainian forces were able to achieve operational surprise,’ the Washington-based ISW said late Thursday.
The ISW added that the Russian forces in place to defend Kursk appeared to be ‘conscripts and irregular forces’.
‘The Russian military command may currently be resisting operational pressures to redeploy forces from other operational directions to prevent the Ukrainian incursion from disrupting Russian offensive operations in eastern Ukraine,’ it assessed.
Ukrainian forces have since carried out a second incursion northeast of Sumy City and were advancing on Kucherov as the offensive deepens, according to a Russian milblogger.
Influential Russian military bloggers have blasted army leaders for failing to spot or quash the incursion.
A Kremlin official told Russian outlet Politika.Kozlov the apparent invasion was a ‘slap in the face for the president’ as Russia had been ‘unable to push the enemy back’.
Putin has called the incursion a ‘large-scale provocation’ and Russia’s top general has vowed to crush it.
But Moscow has not yet presented detailed information on the extent of the advance.
It said Friday it had struck Ukrainian positions on the western edge of Sudzha, a town around five miles from the border that appeared to be the focus of Kyiv’s offensive.
Several Russian media shared a video purporting to show Sudzha residents appealing to President Vladimir Putin for help, warning that many were unable to evacuate.
‘In a few hours our town was turned into ruins … Our relatives are left behind, we can’t call them, there is no communication. Please help us get our land back,’ one resident said in the video.
The town has an important pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas exports to Europe.
A column of Russian Army trucks in Kursk region damaged by shelling on Friday
A soldier stands near a destroyed military vehicle containing the bodies of dead Russian soldiers, in the aftermath of a strike on a Russian column, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Oktyabrskoye village, Kursk
Russian troops delivering military equipment to the Kursk region on Saturday
A heavily damaged building in the region, which borders Ukraine, after Tuesday’s incursion
An explosion as seen from a driver’s window in the Kursk region, some 8 miles inside Russia
In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed but which hasn’t sent its own army into Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday that its air defenses shot down unspecified objects launched from Ukraine that were flying over Belarusian territory.
‘I do not understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to figure it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocations will not go unanswered,’ Lukashenko said, according to state news agency Belta.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that reinforcements are now being sent to Kursk to counter Ukraine’s raid, with Russia deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks transported on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles.
There has been little reliable information on the daring operation, and its strategic aims are unclear. Ukrainian officials have refused to comment on the incursion, which is taking place about 320 miles southwest of Moscow.
Asked about Ukraine’s incursion, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday the United States was ‘in touch with our Ukrainian counterparts,’ but that he wouldn’t comment until ‘those conversations are complete.’
Ukraine’s backers have not been dissuaded by the apparent offensive, as the US on Friday announced a further $125mn in new military aid for Kyiv.
The aid package underscores ‘our unwavering commitment to (Ukraine) as they continue to battle back against Russian aggression,’ National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told journalists.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the aid would be drawn from American stockpiles and ‘includes air defense interceptors, munitions for rocket systems and artillery, multi-mission radars, and anti-tank weapons.’
The equipment ‘will help Ukraine protect its troops, its people and its cities from Russian attacks and reinforce its capabilities across the front lines,’ he said in a statement.
The United States has been a key military backer of Ukraine, committing more than $55 billion in weapons, ammunition and other security aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Furious Russian residents in Sudzha district appealed directly to dictator Vladimir Putin accusing his regime of “lies” that resulted in civilian deaths by claiming the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk region was under control
People from the border districts of the Kursk region boarding buses to travel to children’s camps in the Moscow region on Friday
Staff from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations assisting people evacuated from the border settlements of the Kursk region on Friday
A building on fire in the town of Sudzha following an incursion into the Kursk region on 7/8
Combatants from Ukraine have made several brief incursions into Russia since the beginning of the conflict, including with units of Russians fighting in support of Kyiv – the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Russia has pushed back against the attacks and has sometimes needed to deploy artillery and aviation.
Ukraine’s main military effort is focused on fighting back Russian forces who control nearly a fifth of its territory after almost two-and-a-half years of war and have made a series of gradual gains in the past six months.
Ukrainian strikes inside Russia’s own territory have mostly involved shelling of border regions and drone attacks on targets such as oil refineries and fuel depots.
Responsibility for previous incursions, into Russia’s Belgorod and Bryansk regions, have been claimed by two murky groups: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.