War in Ukraine, day 913 | Five civilians killed in Ukrainian strike in Russia

(Moscow) Five civilians were killed and 12 others injured in a Ukrainian strike on the Russian region of Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov announced on Sunday.

The attack on the village of Rakitnoe “cost the lives of five civilians,” Gladkov said, adding that “12 people were injured, including three minors.”

Four of them, a woman hit by shrapnel in the abdomen while being operated on, and three men, are in critical condition, the governor said.

The Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been increasingly targeted by Kyiv since the start of an unprecedented offensive by the Ukrainian army on August 6 in Kursk, neighboring Belgorod.

Moscow announced in mid-August the dispatch of additional forces to the Belgorod region, where a state of emergency has been declared, and then the evacuation of five villages on the Ukrainian border from August 19.

According to Kyiv, the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Russia, the largest offensive by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II, is aimed among other things at forcing Moscow to move troops from eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky promised retaliation against Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday vowed “retaliation” against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and signed into law a law banning the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the same day his country celebrates independence from the Soviet Union.

Moscow and Kyiv also announced a prisoner of war exchange involving 230 people – 115 for each side – mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

On August 6, Ukrainian forces took the fighting to their adversary’s soil by launching an offensive of unprecedented scale in the Russian border region of Kursk.

They have seized dozens of towns there, while Russian troops continue to advance in Donbass, eastern Ukraine.

Russia wanted to “destroy us,” but the war has “returned home,” Zelensky told his compatriots in a video recorded in a forested area of ​​the border region of Sumy, from where Kyiv launched its surprise offensive into Russia.

Kyiv “surprises once again,” Zelensky said, promising that Russia “will learn what retaliation is.”

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin met with Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov. According to the Kremlin, they discussed “the fight against enemy forces invading the Kursk region and measures taken to destroy them.”

These terms contrast with previous statements which tended to minimise the Ukrainian operation.

Prisoners of war released

Despite these warlike declarations, Russia and Ukraine announced a new prisoner exchange involving 230 people, including soldiers who had been captured during the surprise Kursk offensive.

According to Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Loubinets, 82 of the 115 people rescued by Kyiv are soldiers who took part in the defense of the Azovstal plant during the siege of Mariupol in 2022, a major military feat in Ukraine.

As in previous exchanges, Saturday’s took place through the United Arab Emirates, which praised itself for being “a reliable mediator” and called for “de-escalation” as “the only way to resolve the conflict.”

Mr Zelensky took part in official independence celebrations in Kyiv’s Hagia Sophia Square on Saturday, alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, two major supporters of his country.

He said on this occasion that the Ukrainian forces had successfully tested a new “missile drone”, the “Palianytsia”, “much faster and more powerful” than the drones they currently have.

On the occasion of Independence Day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose government plans to cut military aid to Kyiv next year, reaffirmed Germany’s “continued and unwavering solidarity” with Ukraine.

European Council President Charles Michel assured on X that “the day is approaching when (Ukraine) will be welcomed into the EU.” The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, assured that Kyiv’s “existential fight” against Moscow was “also existential for the EU.”

Church linked to Moscow banned

Mr Zelensky also signed into law on Saturday the law banning the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the Moscow Patriarchate, which was long the country’s main denomination.

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who openly supported the invasion of Ukraine, accused Kyiv of “persecuting” believers of this branch and called on the international community to condemn the move.

“Hundreds of monasteries, thousands of communities, millions of Orthodox believers in Ukraine will find themselves outside the legal framework, losing their property and their place of prayer,” he regretted.

This branch cut ties with Moscow in 2022, but the Ukrainian authorities still consider it to be under Russian influence and have increased legal proceedings against it, leading to the imprisonment of dozens of priests.

While the Ukrainian military offensive in Russia’s Kursk region is receiving much attention, the epicenter of the fighting remains in Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbass region, where the Russian military has the advantage.

Russian forces are approaching Pokrovsk, a major logistics hub and a town of some 53,000 people that the authorities have called for urgent evacuation. They were less than ten kilometres from the town on Friday.

In another major town in the region, Kostyantynivka, five people were killed and five others injured on Saturday in a Russian strike on residential areas, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office.

AFP journalists at the scene saw a young boy and his dog approach a body covered by a sheet on the side of the road and watch as rescuers rushed to remove it.

Kyiv also claimed to have struck an ammunition depot in the Voronezh region in western Russia. Local Russian authorities reported drone strikes and the evacuation of a village.