President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit on Thursday to the Northeastern Ukrainian border area from where his forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia more than two weeks ago, seizing dozens of settlements.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces have claimed control of an additional village in the Russian region of Kursk and taken more Russian prisoners of war for what he calls an “exchange fund” to swap for captured Ukrainians.
“Another settlement in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control, and we have replenished the exchange fund,” Zelenskyy wrote on the social media platform X after hearing a report from the military commander, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Zelenskyy did not name the newly captured village and did not cross over into Russia itself, which would been regarded by Moscow as a major provocation. He previously has said that Ukraine has no plans to occupy the area long term but wants to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from that area into Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said the Kursk operation launched Aug. 6 has led to a decrease in Russian shelling and a reduction in civilian casualties in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.
The daring Ukrainian foray has rattled the Kremlin, showing Russia’s vulnerability and shattering President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to pretend that the country has been largely unaffected by the 2 1/2-year war. But the foray comes as Ukraine continues to lose ground in its eastern Donetsk region.
Authorities in the city of Kursk, the capital of the Kursk region, began to put up concrete shelters at bus stops and other locations around the city to protect it from shelling. They plan similar work in Zheleznogorsk and Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, the region’s acting Gov. Alexei Smirnov said on his Telegram channel.
Putin has ordered the creation of self-defense units in Russian regions bordering Ukraine, the Russian leader said in a video call with officials.
Smirnov reported to Putin that over 133,000 people have left areas affected by the fighting in the Kursk region, while more than 19,000 have stayed.
The governor of Bryansk, another Russian region bordering Ukraine, said authorities in the region have conducted training for emergency evacuation from border areas in case it is needed.
Separately, the Defense Ministry reported repelling Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka and several other settlements in the Kursk region.
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Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said 114 schools in Russia’s border regions will start teaching remotely when the school year begins at the start of September.
Ukraine’s push into Russia marks the first capture of Russian territory since World War II, but it comes as Kyiv continues to lose ground in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Thursday that its military has claimed control of the village of Mezhove in Donetsk, part of the industrial Donbas region which Moscow seeks to take entirely.
Both sidees in the war have been using drones to attack far within enemy lines.
Ukraine attacked Russia overnight with 28 drones, Russia’s Defense Ministry said. Thirteen were shot down over the Volgograd region, seven over the Rostov region, four over the Belgorod region, two over the Voronezh region, and one each over the Bryansk and Kursk regions, the ministry said.
Andrei Bocharov, governor of the Volgograd region, said Thursday that a military facility caught fire after being attacked by drones in the area of Marinovka where a Russian military air base is located. He did not specify what was damaged.
Videos shared on Russian social media showed an explosion in the night sky, reportedly near the base. Marinovka is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack. Ukraine’s Security Service and the Special Operation Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine conducted the drone attack Wednesday night, striking the Marinovka airfield, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russian law enforcement, said one drone was taken down several kilometers (miles) from the airfield near Marinovka and that wreckage from another fell on a trailer near the air base, causing it to catch fire.
Data from NASA fire satellites, which monitor Earth for forest blazes, showed fires breaking out around the air base’s apron, where fighter jets were previously seen parked.
Another fire burned Thursday in Russia’s Rostov region, where firefighters struggled for the fifth day to put out a fire at an oil depot following a Ukrainian attack in the town of Proletarsk. State news agency Tass said 47 firefighters have been injured while putting out the blaze.
Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press showed the fire at the oil depot still intensely burning as of Wednesday. Storage tanks at the facility appeared engulfed in flames. Flames could be seen in the images, with a thick black smoke cloud drifting west over the city of Proletarsk.
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