Kyiv, Ukraine. Russia on Saturday announced what it called a counterterrorism operation to increase security in the border region, where an incursion this week by Ukrainian forces caught Russian troops off guard and exposed their military vulnerabilities in the two-and-a-half-year war. .
The Russian Defense Ministry said fighting was continuing in the Kursk region and that the military had carried out airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb that causes a shock wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its forces. goals.
The measures announced for Kursk and the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine allow the government to relocate residents, monitor telephone communications and seize vehicles.
The raid that began Tuesday is the largest cross-border incursion of the war and raises concerns that the fighting could spread far beyond Ukraine.
In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed but has not sent its own army to Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday that its air defenses shot down unspecified objects launched from Ukraine flying over Belarusian territory.
“I don’t understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to solve it. “As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocation will not go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to state news agency Belta.
A missile launched from a Russian plane crashed into a Ukrainian shopping mall on Friday, killing at least 14 people and injuring 44 others, authorities said.
The Kostiantynivka shopping center in the eastern Donetsk region is located in the residential area of the city. Thick black smoke rose above him after the attack.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.
It was the second major strike in the city in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile go to an open air market there, killing 17.
July saw the highest civilian casualties in Ukraine since October 2022, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said on Friday. Conflict-related violence killed at least 219 civilians and injured 1,018 during the month, the mission said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said reinforcements are being sent to Kursk to counter the Ukrainian incursion, and Russia deployed multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, trailer-borne tanks and heavy tracked vehicles.
The ministry reported fighting on the outskirts of Sudzha, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. The city has a major pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas exports to Europe.
There has been little reliable information about the daring Ukrainian operation and its strategic objectives are unclear. Ukrainian officials have declined to comment on the raid, which is taking place about 500 kilometers (320 miles) southwest of Moscow.
When asked about the Ukraine incursion, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the United States was “in contact with our Ukrainian counterparts” but would not comment until “those conversations are in place.” complete.”
“There has been no change in our policy approaches,” Kirby said when asked about U.S. policy on gun use. “They are using it in an area where we had said before that they could use American weapons for cross-border attacks. “The ultimate goal here is to help Ukraine defend itself.”
Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the Ukrainians appear to have a clear goal, even if they don’t say what it is.
“Such a coordinated movement of ground forces responds to a clear military objective,” Boulegue told The Associated Press. Additionally, the raid scared the Russian public and dealt a slap in the face to Russian President Vladimir Putin, offering Ukraine “a huge public relations coup,” he said.
The attack “is a massive symbol, a massive show of force (showing) that the war is not frozen,” he said.
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Heintz reported from Tallinn, Estonia
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