Ukraine has launched a massive overnight drone and missile attack on Russia’s southern regions, as it seeks to advance its incursion further.
Russia reported on Wednesday morning that it had destroyed 117 Ukrainian drones as well as several missiles overnight, mostly over the Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
Ukraine launched its surprise offensive last week with a major cross-border raid into Kursk. Russia appears to be struggling to contain the incursion and has announced emergency measures and evacuated tens of thousands.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces were continuing to advance in Kursk and that he has ordered his generals to develop the next “key steps” in the operation. Kyiv now claims it controls at least 1,000sq km (386sq miles) of Russia.
Moscow insists that the real area is around half of that. However, what is clear is that by bringing the war to Russia, Ukraine has provoked alarm.
Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to evacuate from border regions. The governor of the Belgorod region on Wednesday declared a state of emergency, blaming the relentless bombardment by Ukraine.
“The situation in the Belgorod region continues to be extremely difficult and tense,” Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
Daily shelling by Ukraine’s armed forces had destroyed houses, and had killed and injured civilians, he added.
“Therefore, we are making a decision, starting today, to declare a regional emergency situation throughout the Belgorod region … with a subsequent appeal to the government to declare a federal emergency situation.”
Gladkov said Belgorod had also come under drone attack, and that while there were no casualties, there was some damage to buildings. Earlier this week, Belgorod announced it would evacuate people living in the border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the offensive is not aimed at taking Russian territory but as a way to force Russia into peace.
“Russia brought war to others, now it’s coming home,” he said on Tuesday as Kyiv said it had taken control of 74 settlements in Kursk, advancing over 40sq km (15sq miles) of territory in the previous 24 hours.
Russia, which has deployed reinforcements to the region, said it had halted the Ukrainian advance and that attacks had been repelled at villages about 26 to 28km (16 to 17 miles) from the border.
‘Real dilemma’
The Ukrainian attack on Russia, the biggest by a foreign force since World War II, may dramatically alter the course of the war, some suggest.
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Ukraine had “created a real dilemma” for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and currently occupies about a fifth of his neighbour’s internationally recognised territory.
The White House said Ukraine did not provide advance notice of its incursion and the United States had no involvement in the operation, though Russian officials have suggested Ukraine’s Western backers must have known of the attack.
A US official said the goal of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion appeared to be to force Russia to pull troops out of Ukraine to defend against the cross-border assault.
More than 10,000 Ukrainians, including hundreds of children, have been killed as a result of the conflict, according to figures released by the United Nations in February this year. Schools, hospitals and other key infrastructure have also been destroyed.
Last month, UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged Russia to end its “coordinated, large-scale attacks against Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure” after a wave of attacks over the previous two months.
