Russia said it was evacuating tens of thousands of people from its Kursk region, which has been invaded by Ukrainian troops. Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor, said on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday that he had “instructed” the head of the Belovsky district of the region, in Kursk’s south-west, to “speed up” the carrying out of the orders to evacuate. Local officials detailed the scale of civilian evacuations from towns and villages close to the combat zone. “More than 76,000 people have been temporarily relocated to safe places,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted an official from the regional emergency situations ministry as saying at a press briefing.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy acknowledged for the first time on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were fighting in Russia’s Kursk region and said the operation was part of Kyiv’s drive to restore justice after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Ukraine’s president had previously stayed silent about the operation. In his Saturday evening address, he said he had discussed the operation with the top Ukrainian commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, “and our actions and pushing the war into the aggressor’s territory”. Thanking the soldiers involved, he added: “Ukraine is proving that it can really bring justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the attack into Kursk, Dan Sabbagh reports. Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine was estimated to have advanced previously. Russia’s FSB domestic security agency imposed a “counter-terrorism” regime on Kursk and two neighbouring oblasts, Bryansk and Belgorod, giving the authorities sweeping powers to lock down an area and impose controls on communications.
Russia’s nuclear agency on Saturday warned of a direct threat to the Kursk nuclear power station, less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the fighting. “The actions of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk plant in western Russia, state news agencies cited its atomic energy agency Rosatom as saying. There was no evidence of Ukrainian forces threatening the plant. On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency called for “maximum restraint”.
There were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit in the Kursk region. Acting governor Alexey Smirnov said on Friday that a fire had broken out in a transformer substation hit by debris from a Ukrainian drone. Power was out in some frontline areas, he added, including Kurchatov, where the nuclear power station is based.
Belarus sent more troops to reinforce its border with Ukraine on Saturday, saying Ukrainian drones had violated its airspace in the course of Kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region. Belarus’s foreign ministry summoned Ukraine’s charge d’affaires, demanded measures to ensure such incidents would not recur and suggested a repeat would prompt Belarus to consider whether Kyiv’s diplomatic presence in Minsk was “appropriate”. The Ukrainian foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ukraine’s navy and military intelligence attacked and damaged a former offshore gas platform used by Russian forces in the Black Sea, the navy spokesperson said on Saturday. He posted a video taken at night showing an explosion on an offshore platform and the ensuing fire. He said that a half a day before the attack, Russian forces had stationed equipment and military personnel on the platform. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
Three people were killed in two Russian attacks on Ukraine’s eastern frontline Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, local officials said on Saturday. One civilian was killed and several others were injured in a Russian missile strike on the town of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, the local governor said.
One civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian city of Lipetsk, about 300 km (190 miles) from the Ukrainian border, the regional government said on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday. Igor Artamonov, governor of the Lipetsk region, said Russian air defence systems had intercepted 19 Ukrainian drones overnight
Elsewhere on the frontline, Ukraine on Saturday reported the lowest number of “combat engagements” on its territory since 10 June. That could be a sign its incursion is helping to relieve pressure on other parts of the sprawling frontline where Moscow’s troops had been advancing.
Russia launched an air attack on Kyiv, with air defence systems repelling the strikes, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital and military administration officials said early on Sunday. “Air defence units operating, air raid alert continues,” said the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko. It was not immediately clear if the attack caused any damage or injuries.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy pledged on Saturday to “strengthen our Ukrainian spiritual independence”, suggesting that the country’s leadership was moving towards effectively banning the branch of the Orthodox church that has links to Moscow. Membership of the independent church loyal to the Kyiv patriarchate has swelled since Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022. But the minority Moscow-linked church retains influence and Ukrainian leaders accuse it of abetting the invasion and trying to poison public opinion.