Ukraine has advanced further inside Russia after it launched a massive drone and missile barrage over the border on Wednesday morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky claimed.
Mr Zelensky said his troops had gained between one to two kilometres in Kursk despite Moscow claiming it had halted Kyiv’s advance after it launched the shock incursion on 6 August.
It came after Russian officials said Ukraine had fired 117 drones and four tactical missiles across the border, with 37 hitting Kursk as thousands of troops poured into Russia.
Mr Zelensky added: “We continue to advance further in Kursk region. From one to two kilometres in various areas since the start of the day.”
The surprise operation has given Ukraine its biggest battlefield gains since 2022 after months on the backfoot while waiting for much-anticipated US and Western military aid, analysis showed.
Meanwhile, Kyiv carried out its largest long-range drone strike of the war on four Russian military airfields, a Ukrainian security source said.
The strike, which targeted Russia’s Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk air bases, aimed to undermine Moscow’s ability to use warplanes for gliding bomb attacks on Ukraine, the source added.
Since the incursion last week, Russian forces have reduced the number of guided bomb attacks on border settlements in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the local governor said on Monday.
US president Joe Biden said Washington was in constant touch with Ukraine over the incursion, which he said had “created a real dilemma” for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The White House said Ukraine gave no advance notice of its incursion and the United States had no involvement. Russian officials have claimed Ukraine’s Western backers must have known of the attack.
“Of course they are involved,” Russian lawmaker Maria Butina said. “It looks even worse when they say they don’t know anything and put all the responsibility on Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said the Russian town of Sudzha, a transhipment hub for Russian natural gas flowing to Europe via Ukraine, was fully under Ukrainian control.
Nearly 200,000 Russians have been forced to evacuate border regions near the site where, during World War Two in 1943, the Red Army defeated Nazi forces in one of the world’s biggest-ever tank battles.
Mr Putin said Ukraine “with the help of its Western masters” was aiming to improve Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks.
Mr Zelensky has said the incursion is meant to pressure Russian forces and “restore justice” after Russia’s invasion.