Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said an incursion into Russia's Kursk region has achieved its strategic goals, and Russia quickly rejected the claims.
In a Telegram post on Wednesday, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian troops had advanced between one and two kilometers in several areas of Russia throughout the day.
He said 100 Russian soldiers had been captured in the surprise invasion, which began last week.
In his evening speech, Zelenskyy called the operation a “good development,” while calling on Western allies to allow Ukrainian forces to use the long-range missiles they have provided to strike targets deeper inside Russia.
Western officials have largely resisted such calls for fear of a broader escalation with Russia, with some exceptions.
“The bolder the partners’ decisions are, the less Putin will be able to do,” Zelensky said.
In total, Ukraine has declared that it currently controls about 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of Russian territory. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko has said the offensive has created a “buffer zone” that is “designed to protect our border communities from daily enemy attacks.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to expel Ukrainian troops and described the offensive as a Western-backed plan to give kyiv a stronger position in possible future ceasefire negotiations.
Russian officials have also rejected claims that kyiv's incursion was changing the equation of the war, which has dragged on since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
They have accused Ukrainian forces of killing civilians in the assault, a charge kyiv has denied.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the offensive has not diverted Russian forces from the Donbass and Slobozhanshchina regions, areas where Ukrainian forces have been shelled by Russians in recent weeks.
“The Zelensky regime has failed to achieve its main goal – to divert the Russian armed forces from Donbas and Slobozhanshchina,” he said in a statement on the Foreign Ministry website.
Meanwhile, Moscow said it had shot down 117 Ukrainian drones flying over Russia overnight, the vast majority in the Kursk region. Others were shot down in the Voronezh, Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Russia's defence ministry said Russian forces had also repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks inside the Kursk region, and state television claimed Moscow's forces were turning the tide, showing footage of attacks on Ukrainian positions and evacuations of Russian civilians.
State of emergency in Bolgorod
Also on Wednesday, Russia's border region of Belgorod, which borders Kursk to the south, declared a state of emergency.
Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov described the situation there as “extremely difficult and tense”, saying the strikes had destroyed homes and caused civilian casualties, unnerving locals.
Gladkov said on his Telegram channel that children were being moved to safety, adding that about 5,000 children were in camps in safe areas. The day before, he said about 11,000 people had fled their homes and about 1,000 were in temporary accommodation centres.
In total, Russia has said it has already evacuated some 200,000 people from border regions.
Amid growing fears over the humanitarian cost, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Wednesday that kyiv would open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians, “both in the direction of Russia and in the direction of 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.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Pavel Felgenhauer, a defence analyst and columnist for Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said the kyiv incursion represents a broader failure of Russian intelligence.
Still, he said the move “is not totally changing the face of war.”
“It's a big surprise for the West that Ukraine has mustered such a capability for offensive action. I think it was a surprise to many in kyiv, actually,” Felgenhauer told Al Jazeera.
“They have seized territory, they have confused Russia's general plans, but this offensive in the north and this advance have not yet borne strategic fruit,” he said.
Western allies have denied any advance knowledge of the offensive, fearing a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO members.
On Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said American officials were in constant contact with kyiv about the incursion, although the White House has maintained Washington had no advance notice and had no involvement.
Several Russian officials have said it was unlikely that Ukraine's close Western allies were unaware of the plan.
The assault on Kursk is the largest attack on Russian soil since World War II. Military analysts estimate it could involve up to 10,000 Ukrainian troops backed by armored vehicles and artillery.
