Three days after Ukraine’s cross-border attack on Russia’s Kursk region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow must “feel” the consequences of its invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia brought war to our land and should feel what it did,” Zelensky said in his speech on Thursday night, without making direct reference to the Ukrainian offensive.
“Ukrainians know how to achieve their goals. And we did not choose to achieve our goals in war,” he added.
Russia says at least 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, entered its territory on Tuesday morning – in what appears to be one of the biggest attacks on Russian soil since the start of the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin previously accused Ukraine of a “major provocation”.
Ukrainian authorities have remained largely silent about the offensive. The exact situation on the ground is difficult to determine, with few specific details released by either side.
“Everyone can see that the Ukrainian army knows how to surprise [and] achieve results,” the Ukrainian president said on Thursday, without making direct reference to the attack.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said it was monitoring the Kursk nuclear power plant, according to Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its troops “continued to destroy” Ukrainian armed units with airstrikes, rockets and artillery fire.
The ministry said Russian reserves were rushed to the region.
The Institute for the Study of War, a respected think tank, said geolocated images showed Ukrainian armored vehicles advanced to positions 10 km (6.2 miles) from the Kursk region in the first two days of the incursion.
Russia’s military leadership is under severe scrutiny domestically, as some popular and generally well-informed pro-war Telegram channels have claimed that the situation on the ground is not as stable as the Kremlin has suggested.
Influential pro-war channel Rybar Telegram sharply criticized the highest echelons of the Russian military on Wednesday, saying that “for two months complete information was sent to useless headquarters,” adding that there was enough time “to take a appropriate decision.” .
Local leaders in regions adjacent to Kursk in both Russia and Ukraine told residents to leave for their safety.
On Wednesday, the head of the Ukrainian Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, ordered the evacuation of the border areas of Kursk.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Thursday that settlements in his province had been attacked by Ukrainian forces in the past 24 hours.
Ukraine’s key allies appeared surprised by the offensive – with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying the US was reaching out to Ukraine to better understand what it hoped to achieve.
This is not the first incursion into Russia by fighters based in Ukraine. Some anti-Kremlin Russian groups launched attacks last year, which were repelled.
The forces crossed back into the Belgorod and Kursk regions in March, where they were involved in clashes with Russian security forces.
On Wednesday night, Ukrainian deputy Oleksiy Honcharenko said that the Ukrainian army had established control over the Sudzha gas hub, an important facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which continued despite the war .
It is the only entry point for Russian gas into the EU.
On Thursday, gas was still flowing from Sudzha.
Russia’s National Guard said it had beefed up security around the Kursk nuclear power plant, which is about 70 kilometers northeast of Sudzha.
In recent months, Russia has made incremental gains in eastern Ukraine as many of Kiev’s ground forces faced relentless attacks in the eastern Donbass region.
In a recent interview, the head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, said that the main offensive by Russian forces “should end within a month and a half to two months.”
