Ukraine commander says forces control big part of Russian region

Russian President Vladimir Putin sits in a meeting with another man.

By Samya Kullab

Aug. 12, 2024 Updated 1:06 PM PT

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s top military commander says his forces now control 386 square miles of neighboring Russia’s Kursk region, the first time a Ukrainian military official has publicly commented on the gains of the lightning incursion that has embarrassed the Kremlin.

Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi made the statement in a video posted Monday to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Telegram channel. In the video, he briefed the president on the front-line situation.

“The troops are fulfilling their tasks. Fighting continues actually along the entire front line. The situation is under our control,” Syrskyi said.

Russian forces are still scrambling to respond to the surprise Ukrainian attack after almost a week of fierce fighting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the incursion, which has caused more than 100,000 civilians to flee, is an attempt by Kyiv to stop Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region and gain leverage in possible future peace talks.

Zelensky confirmed for the first time that the Ukrainian military is operating inside the Kursk region. On Telegram, he praised his country’s soldiers and commanders “for their steadfastness and decisive actions.”

He did not elaborate. He also suggested that Ukraine would offer humanitarian assistance in the region.

Speaking Monday at a meeting with top security and defense officials, Putin said the attack that began Aug. 6 appeared to reflect Kyiv’s attempt to achieve a better negotiating position in possible future talks to end the war. He insisted Moscow’s army would prevail.

Putin said Ukraine may have hoped that the attack would cause public unrest in Russia, but that it has failed to achieve that goal, and he claimed that the number of volunteers to join the Russian military has increased because of the assault. He said Russian forces will carry on with their offensive in eastern Ukraine regardless.

“It’s obvious that the enemy will keep trying to destabilize the situation in the border zone to try to destabilize the domestic political situation in our country,” Putin said. Russia’s main task is “to squeeze out, drive the enemy out of our territories and, together with the border service, to ensure reliable cover of the state border.”

Acting Kursk Gov. Alexei Smirnov reported to Putin that Ukrainian forces had pushed more than seven miles into the Kursk region across a 25-mile front and currently control 28 Russian settlements.

Smirnov said 12 civilians have been killed and 121 others, including 10 children, have been wounded. About 121,000 people have been evacuated or left the areas affected by fighting on their own, he said.

Tracking down all the Ukrainian units that are roaming the region and creating diversions is difficult, Smirnov said, adding that some are using fake Russian IDs.

The governor of the Belgorod region adjacent to Kursk also announced the evacuation of people from a district near the Ukrainian border.

Ukrainian forces swiftly rolled into the town of Sudzha about six miles over the border after launching the attack. They reportedly still hold the western part of the town, which is the site of an important natural gas station.

The Ukrainian operation is under tight secrecy, and its goals remain unclear. The stunning maneuver that caught the Kremlin’s forces off guard counters Russia’s unrelenting effort in recent months to punch through Ukrainian defenses at selected points along the front line in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky said the territory now controlled by Ukrainian forces was used to strike Ukraine’s Sumy region many times, adding that it is “absolutely fair to destroy Russian terrorists where they are.”

“Russia brought war to others. Now it is coming home,” he said in a video posted on his Telegram channel.

Russia has seen previous incursions into its territory during the nearly 2 1/2-year war, but the foray into the Kursk region marked the largest attack on its soil since World War II, constituting a milestone in the hostilities. It is also the first time the Ukrainian army, rather than pro-Ukraine Russian fighters, has spearheaded an incursion.

The advance delivered a blow to Putin’s efforts to pretend that life in Russia has been largely unaffected by the war. State propaganda tried to play down the attack, emphasizing authorities’ efforts to help residents of the region and seeking to distract attention from the military’s failure to prepare for the attack and quickly repel it.

Kursk residents recorded videos lamenting they had to flee the border area, leaving behind their belongings, and pleading with Putin for help. But Russia’s state-controlled media kept a tight lid on any expression of discontent.

Retired Gen. Andrei Gurulev, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, criticized the military for failing to properly protect the border.

“Regrettably, the group of forces protecting the border didn’t have its own intelligence assets,” he said on his messaging app channel. “No one likes to see the truth in reports, everybody just wants to hear that all is good.”

The combat inside Russia rekindled questions about whether Ukraine was using weaponry supplied by NATO members. Some Western countries have balked at allowing Ukraine to use their military aid to hit Russian soil, fearing it would fuel an escalation that might drag Russia and NATO into war.

Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in an interview published Monday that the weapons provided by his country “cannot be used to attack Russia on its territory.”

Meanwhile, German Defense Ministry spokesperson Arne Collatz said Monday that legal experts agree that “international law provides for a state that is defending itself also to defend itself on the territory of the attacker. That is clear from our point of view, too.”

Kullab writes for the Associated Press.