kyiv: Ukrainian forces advanced further into Russia's Kursk region on Wednesday as kyiv said their advances would provide a strategic buffer zone to protect its border areas from Russian attacks.
kyiv's invasion of Russian territory last week took Moscow by surprise. Russian forces that launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had been making steady gains throughout the year.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he met with senior officials to discuss the humanitarian situation and set up military commanders' offices “if necessary” in an occupied area that kyiv says exceeds 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles).
“We continue to advance on Kursk,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram, “by one to two kilometers in several areas since the beginning of the day.”
Later in his evening speech, Zelenskiy referred to the growing number of Russian prisoners of war taken in Kursk who could be exchanged for Ukrainian fighters.
“Today we are making good progress in Kursk, we are achieving our strategic goal. The 'exchange fund' of our state has also been significantly replenished.”
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 bombarding Ukraine with attacks launched from adjacent border territories, including Kursk.
Ukraine complains that its defence against such attacks has been hampered by the need to respect the stance of Western countries to use their weapons against Russia's interior rather than against its forces in occupied Ukraine. Zelenskiy once again urged Western allies to allow long-range missile strikes against Russia.
Russia says it shot down Ukrainian drones
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to expel Ukrainian troops. He says his aim, with Western support, is to give Kiev a stronger position in possible future ceasefire negotiations. But more than a week of intense fighting has so far failed to drive them out.
“The situation remains difficult,” said Yuri Podolyaka, an influential pro-Russian military blogger born in Ukraine.
Ukraine's General Staff said kyiv struck four Russian military airfields in the Voronezh, Kursk and Nizhniy Novgorod regions overnight, targeting fuel depots and air weapons. Zelensky called the strike “timely” and “precise.”
The aim of the long-range drone strike was to undermine Russia's ability to attack Ukraine with gliding bombs, a Ukrainian security source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The Ukrainian military said it had destroyed a Russian Su-34.
Moscow claimed to have shot down 117 Ukrainian drones, as well as four missiles. The Russian Defence Ministry posted a video on Telegram showing Sukhoi Su-34 bombers attacking Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region.
Later, the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks inside Kursk, including at Russkoye Porechnoye, 18 kilometres from the border. Some pro-Russian bloggers said the front had stabilised, while state television said Moscow's forces were turning the tide.
Russia's National Guard said it was stepping up security at the Kursk nuclear plant, just 35 kilometres (22 miles) from the scene of the fighting.
In the Russian border region of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov declared a state of emergency.
Russia says it has already evacuated some 200,000 people from the border area. The acting governor of the Kursk region reported late on Wednesday on Telegram that residents of the border town of Glushkovo had been ordered to evacuate.
Ukraine plans civilian corridors
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said kyiv would open humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians to Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said kyiv would also arrange access for international humanitarian organizations, likely including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations.
The unprecedented incursion carries huge 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 American officials were in constant contact with kyiv about the incursion, though the White House said Washington had received no advance notice and had no involvement.
Russian officials say Ukraine's Western allies must have known about the attack. “Of course they are involved,” lawmaker Maria Butina told Reuters.
The offensive could leave Ukrainian forces more exposed elsewhere along the front, where Russia has been slowly increasing the 18 percent of Ukrainian territory it now controls.
The heaviest fighting continues in the Donetsk region, and Zelenskiy said his forces there will receive more weapons than planned in the next Western support package.
Ukraine's Supreme Commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian town of Sudzha, a transshipment hub for Russian natural gas flowing to Europe through Ukraine, was fully under Ukrainian control. Natural gas was still flowing on Wednesday.
“Sudzha is under Ukrainian control, but Ukraine has no intention of claiming foreign territory,” the Kiev Foreign Ministry said.
