Ukraine has penetrated the region by at least 12 kilometers.
Moscow:
President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered his army to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who entered Russian territory, while authorities said more than 120,000 people had been evacuated from the fighting.
Kiev launched a surprise offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing more than two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.
“One of the enemy’s obvious goals is to sow discord, conflict, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society,” Putin said in a televised meeting with government officials.
“The main task is, obviously, the Ministry of Defense to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he said.
Some 121,000 people have fled the Kursk region since fighting began, which has killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121 more, regional governor Alexei Smirnov said at the meeting with Putin.
Authorities in Kursk announced on Monday that they were expanding their evacuation area to include the Belovsky district, where around 14,000 residents live. The neighboring Belgorod region also said it was evacuating the border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.
Ukraine has penetrated the region by at least 12 kilometers (seven miles) and captured 28 cities and villages, with the new front 40 kilometers long, Smirnov said.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP over the weekend that the operation was aimed at stretching Russian troops and destabilizing the country after months of slow Russian advances on the front line.
Putin said Russia would respond by showing “unanimous support for all those in danger” and claimed there had been an increase in the number of men signing up to fight.
“The enemy will receive a worthy response,” he said.
– ‘Maximum losses’ –
The attack appeared to catch the Kremlin off guard. The Russian army advanced with reserve troops, tanks, aviation, artillery and drones in an attempt to suppress him.
But it admitted on Sunday that Ukraine had penetrated up to 30 kilometers (20 miles) into Russian territory at some points.
He said some forces were near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez, about 25 and 30 kilometers from the border between Russia and Ukraine.
A Ukrainian security official told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that “the aim is to expand the enemy’s positions, inflict maximum losses and destabilize the situation in Russia, as they are unable to protect their own border”.
The Ukrainian official said thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were involved in the operation.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its air defense systems destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones – including 11 over the Kursk region.
– ‘It’s scary’ –
Russia’s emergency situations ministry said on Sunday that more than 44,000 residents in the Kursk region have applied for financial assistance, the TASS news agency reported.
Meanwhile, the Russian railway operator has organized emergency trains from Kursk to Moscow, around 450 kilometers away, for those fleeing.
“It’s scary to have helicopters flying over your head all the time,” said Marina, who declined to give her last name, who arrived in Moscow by train on Sunday. “When it was possible to leave, I left.”
Across the border, in Ukraine’s Sumy region, AFP journalists on Sunday saw dozens of armored vehicles painted with a white triangle – the insignia apparently being used to identify Ukrainian military equipment used in the attack.
At an evacuation center in the regional capital of Sumy, 70-year-old retired metalworker Mykola, who fled his village of Khotyn, about 10 kilometers from the Russian border, welcomed Ukraine’s entry into Russia.
“We’ll let them find out what it’s like,” he told AFP. “They don’t understand what war is. Let them experience it.”
Analysts believe Kiev may have launched the attack to relieve pressure on its troops elsewhere on the front line.
But the Ukrainian official said: “The pressure in the east continues, they are not withdrawing troops from the area”, even though “the intensity of the Russian attacks has decreased somewhat”.
The Ukrainian official said he hoped that Russia would “eventually” stop the incursion.
Ukraine was preparing for a large-scale retaliatory missile strike, including “against decision-making centers” in Ukraine, the official said.
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