War in Ukraine, day 900 | Russian military says it is preventing deep advances by Ukrainian forces

(Kyiv) “Thousands” of Ukrainian troops are taking part in the ongoing incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, a senior official said, with Russia saying it was halting any deep advances by Kyiv’s troops into its territory.

In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had prevented “attempts to break through” by enemy “mobile armored groups” near the towns of Tolpino, Zhuravli and Obshchi Kolodez, located about thirty kilometers as the crow flies from Ukraine.

The ministry added that these advances were stopped by air, drone and artillery strikes and the dispatch of reserves from the “North” group, deployed in the Ukrainian region of Kharkiv (northeast).

The Russian military also claims to have struck Ukrainian troops with missiles and artillery near the towns of Sudzha, Korenevo, Staraya Sorotchitsa and Borki, as well as to have prevented a breakthrough in the Belovskiy district further east.

After months of retreating in the face of Russian troops on the eastern front, Ukraine launched an unprecedented large-scale operation on Tuesday in the border region of Kursk, taking control of several localities there, according to analysts.

“The goal is to stretch the enemy’s positions, inflict maximum losses on him, and destabilize the situation in Russia. […] and transfer the war to Russian territory,” a Ukrainian security official told AFP on Saturday evening on condition of anonymity.

“Moving the War”

He assured that “thousands” of Ukrainian soldiers were participating in the operation.

Kursk region governor Alexei Smirnov acknowledged on Sunday that the situation was “difficult.”

For his part, Ramzan Kadyrov, who heads Russia’s Chechnya region, said on Sunday that a unit of his Chechen fighters, considered the country’s most brutal and hardened soldiers, was active in the Kursk region.

AFP journalists saw dozens of Ukrainian armoured vehicles on the roads of the Ukrainian region of Sumy (north), bordering that of Kursk, on Sunday.

These vehicles, of different types, are marked with a white triangle which clearly serves to identify the troops taking part in this offensive.

After days of silence on the operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged its existence for the first time in his daily address Saturday night, explaining that Kyiv was seeking to “move the war to the territory of the aggressor.”

In response to the attack, Russia sent reinforcements and established an “anti-terrorist” regime in three regions bordering Ukraine, including Kursk.

Russian pressure in the East

It announced on Saturday that it had evacuated more than 76,000 people from the area affected by the incursion to “safe places”. Ukraine, for its part, has requested the evacuation of at least 20,000 civilians from the Sumy region.

In Ukraine, a fire broke out on Sunday evening in the cooling system of the Ukrainian nuclear power plant Zaporizhzhia, which is shut down and occupied by Russian armed forces. Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of responsibility.

The IAEA said “there is no impact on nuclear safety”, while once again denouncing “irresponsible attacks which […] “increase the danger of a nuclear accident.” The head of the Russian administration in the region, Vladimir Rogov, said early Monday that the fire had been “completely extinguished.”

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has been waging a relentless offensive there ever since, occupying swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine and subjecting Ukrainian cities to daily artillery, missile and drone attacks.

According to the Ukrainian official interviewed by AFP, the incursion was initially aimed at diverting Russian forces from the Ukrainian regions of Kharkiv and Donbass (east) to ease their pressure on the Kyiv army, which is smaller and lacks weapons.

But so far, this does not seem to have changed the situation on the eastern front, the official admitted.

“Their pressure in the East continues, they are not withdrawing their troops from this area,” even if the “intensity” of Russian attacks there has “diminished a little bit.”

Western allies warned, says Kyiv

The attack, however, “caught the Russians off guard” and “really boosted our morale, that of the Ukrainian army, the state and society” exhausted by two and a half years of invasion, the official continued.

Sooner or later, Russia will “stop” the Ukrainian units in the Kursk region, but if “after a certain time it does not manage to retake these territories, they can be used for political purposes,” for example, during peace negotiations, he said.

He claimed that Russia was preparing a massive missile attack against “decision-making centers” in Ukraine in response to the offensive.

Ukraine’s Western allies had been warned of the incursion, he also assured.

“Since Western weapons are actively used” in this operation, “our Western partners indirectly participated in its planning,” he said.

The official also stated that the military personnel involved in the raid were respecting international humanitarian law and had no intention of annexing the areas they currently occupy.