Ukrainian soldiers have torn down Russian flags as forces push on with their major cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region for a second week.
Since the start of the day (14/8), assault troops had advanced two miles in some parts of Kursk, the commander of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said in a video posted on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Telegram channel.
Also, Ukrainian troops on Wednesday took more than 100 Russian soldiers prisoner, he said. Mr Zelensky said they would be used to swap for Ukrainian POWs.
Ukraine’s general staff added that troops deployed in Kursk destroyed a Russian Su-34 jet used to launch devastating glide bombs at Ukrainian front-line positions and cities.
The surprise Ukrainian charge on to Russian soil that began on August 6 has rattled the Kremlin.
The daring Kursk operation is the largest attack on Russia since the Second World War and could involve as many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops backed by armour and artillery, military analysts say.
A Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that Kyiv has no intention of occupying the Russian territory it says it is holding. The goal is to stop Russia from firing missiles into Ukraine from Kursk, he said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Belgorod border region declared a regional emergency on Wednesday under heavy Ukrainian shelling.
A federal emergency was declared in Kursk last Saturday.
Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov described the situation there as “extremely difficult and tense” as the attacks destroyed homes and caused civilian casualties, unnerving local people.
Children in particular are being moved to safety, he said on his Telegram channel, adding that about 5,000 children are in camps in safe areas.
He said the previous day that about 11,000 people had fled their homes, with about 1,000 staying in temporary accommodation centres.
It was not clear how or when, or whether, Ukraine would attempt to extricate itself from the ground it has taken.
The Ukrainian military claims it controls 74 settlements, believed to be villages or hamlets, in the Kursk region. Russian officials say more than 100,000 people have been evacuated, mostly from Kursk.
Ukraine’s 1+1 TV channel published a video report on Wednesday it said was from Sudzha, a Russian town about six miles from the border.
The report showed burnt-out Russian military columns on roads in the area as well as Ukrainian soldiers handing humanitarian aid to residents and taking down Russian flags from an administrative building.
Russia’s predicament now is whether to pull troops from the front line in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where achieving a breakthrough is currently a primary war goal for the Kremlin, to defend Kursk and stop the incursion from ballooning.