Putin vows to ‘squeeze the enemy’ as Ukraine pushes deeper into Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin promised on Monday to expel Ukrainian troops from their country’s territory, as more civilians were urged to flee the cross-border surprise attack this left the Kremlin struggling and saw Kiev regain the initiative in the war.

Putin’s first major public intervention on the crisis came as battles raged inside Russia for the seventh day after the incursion into the Kursk border region by Ukrainian forces, who appeared to have advanced up to 20 miles.

Residents were also now being evacuated from parts of the neighboring Belgorod region, in the latest sign that the Kremlin has failed to repel the threat of an intensified offensive.

Speaking at a special meeting dedicated to the situation, the Russian leader ordered his defense ministry to “squeeze, to expel the enemy from our territories” before solidifying Russia’s border defenses.

from Ukraine impressive raid it embarrassed the Kremlin and boosted morale, but left many observers scratching their heads about what Kiev could hope to achieve. Putin weighed in on Monday, saying the attack was aimed at improving Ukraine’s position in the future peace negotiationsrelieve pressure on combat forces fighting on the front lines and fuel discord within Russia.

“It appears that the enemy is trying to improve its negotiating positions,” Putin said. Russia has been calling for peace talks in recent months, but with impossible condition that Kiev cedes vast territories annexed by Moscow in 2022.

The attack also aims, he said, to prevent advance of Russian forces in eastern and southern Ukraine. “What are the results?” Putin said, sounding irate. “Along the entire line of contact, our forces are advancing,” he said, claiming that the pace of Russian gains accelerated last week.

Ukraine has also failed in its attempt to sow discord and destroy the “unity” of the Russian people, he added, saying that more people have signed up to serve in the army in recent days.

“The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response,” Putin concluded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the incursion for the first time on Saturday, after Kiev remained largely silent about the operation. “Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and ensures exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.

The Russian Ministry of Defense recognized Sunday his forces were still involved in heavy fighting with Ukrainian troops in Kursk. He said he was facing Ukrainians near the villages of Tolpino, Obshchy Kolodez and Zhuravli, which are 21 to 27 kilometers from the closest stretch of the border with Ukraine.

The Kremlin sent reinforcements to the area last week, and Moscow’s Defense Ministry said on Monday that Ukraine had lost around 1,600 troops in the operation, more than the number it military chief General Valery Gerasimov said last week had attempted the incursion.

Putin said on Monday that Ukrainian losses were “increasing dramatically.”

But the ongoing battles are a major blow to Putin’s domestic standing, with the country’s influential military bloggers suggesting on Monday that fighting inside Russia continued and that the regions surrounding Kursk could also be at risk.

NBC News was unable to confirm any of the details. Ukraine has not commented on the number of its troops involved in the Kursk region.

Some images of Ukrainian troops inside Russia began to appear on social media.

NBC News was able to verify a video showing a Ukrainian flag being raised in the settlement of Guevo in the southern part of the Sudzha district of the Kursk region, and a video of soldiers removing a Russian flag from the administrative building of the village of Sverdlikovo, right in border with Ukraine.

A national emergency was declared last week and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from border communities in Kursk amid reports of civilian casualties and destruction.

New evacuations were announced on Monday in the Belovsky district, where the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian troops had tried to advance.

Kursk’s acting governor, Aleksei Smirnov, informed Putin on Monday that 28 settlements in his region were under Ukrainian control.

About 180,000 people in the region are subject to evacuation, Smirnov said, and more than 120,000 have already been evacuated or left alone.

Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the neighboring Belgorod region, warned of an increase in “enemy activity” and said authorities were beginning to proactively evacuate people from the district.

District officials said Monday that 11,000 people had been evacuated.

Putin warned that more Russian border regions could be attacked, saying Kiev would try to further destabilize the situation inside the country, including in the Bryansk region on the border with northern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, both sides accused each other of endangering Europe’s largest nuclear power plant after a large fire broke out there.

Zelensky shared a video Sunday appearing to show smoke coming from one of the towers of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. He said Russian forces, who had occupied the site since the first weeks of the February 2022 invasion, started the fire.

Moscow blamed Ukraine for Sunday’s incident.

The governor of the Zaporizhzhia region sworn in by the Kremlin, Evgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram that one of the cooling towers was hit by a Ukrainian drone.

Ukrainian and Russian officials said radiation levels at the plant remained normal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a statement statement about X Sunday that its experts witnessed “strong dark smoke” coming from the northern area of ​​the plant “after multiple explosions heard at night”, but that there was no impact on nuclear safety.

This article was originally published in NBCNews. with