For more than a week, Ukrainian troops have been conducting a surprise offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk. More than 120,000 residents have already been evacuated, according to Russian authorities, who claim to have “repelled” attacks aimed at “penetrating deep” into the region.
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After more than two years of defending its own borders, the Ukrainian army has decided to move the war to its aggressor. It has been eight days since kyiv entered Russian soil by surprise, eight days since its soldiers held their positions. Launched on the morning of Monday, August 6, in the Kursk region, north of Kharkiv, this lightning incursion has since spread to the neighboring Belgorod region.
kyiv claims to control 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk region alone. According to calculations made by AFP using Russian data compiled by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, Ukraine has advanced 800 square kilometers in the Kursk region. The map below shows the scale of this incursion, the first by a foreign regular army on Russian soil since the end of World War II.
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For comparison, Russia has advanced by 1,360 km2 in Ukrainian territory since early 2024, and Ukraine’s counter-offensives on its own territory over the same period only amounted to 20 km2, according to AFP analysis.
According to the authorities of the Kursk region, Ukrainian shelling has so far killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121, including ten children. Governor Alexei Smirnov estimates the number at least 121,000. “left or evacuated”. Ua record in the country since the second Chechen war, more than twenty years ago.
The operation involved several thousand soldiers equipped with Western military equipment. They broke through two Russian defense lines, according to the map published on X by ISW. “We continue to advance in the Kursk region. Since the beginning of the day, we have covered between one and two kilometers in different areas”Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday on Telegram, quoted by AFP. He also reported that “more than 100 Russian soldiers captured” this Wednesday.
At the same time, AFP reports, the Russian army said in a statement that it had foiled “attempts” deep breakthrough of Ukrainian mobile groups near five localities in the region, one of which, Levchinka, is located 35 km as the crow flies from Ukraine.
The Kursk and Belgorod regions represent an important operational rear base for Russia. Ammunition depots, fuel depots, command posts… Many military infrastructures serving in the war in Ukraine are located in this border area. Vladimir Putin, for whom the Ukrainian attack is an unexpected setback, has ordered his army to“to expel the enemy of the territory”.