Joe McConnell
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has admitted for the first time that his army is conducting a cross-border offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region.
In his video address on Saturday evening, Zelensky said the Ukrainian military was moving the war to the “territory of the aggressor.”
Kiev launched its surprise attack on Tuesday, rapidly advancing more than 10 km (six miles) into Russia, its deepest strike since Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In Ukraine, the capital Kiev and several other regions were hit by a Russian missile and drone attack in the early hours of Sunday, local officials said.
In his speech, President Zelensky thanked the Ukrainian “warriors” and said that he had discussed the operation in Russia with the country’s military commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi.
“Ukraine is demonstrating that it can actually restore justice and exert the necessary pressure on the aggressor,” he added.
Russia has so far struggled to halt the Ukrainian advance, with more than 76,000 people evacuated from the Kursk region and an “anti-terrorist” regime imposed in three border areas.
This means that the authorities in the Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions can restrict the movement of people and vehicles and resort to wiretapping, among other measures.
Clashes appeared to be continuing on Saturday evening, with Kursk Governor Aleksei Smirnov saying on Sunday morning that there were injuries in a “treacherous” Ukrainian attack.
It had previously reported that 13 people were injured late on Saturday evening when the remains of a downed Ukrainian missile hit a multi-storey building in the regional capital Kursk.
The governors of Russia’s neighboring regions, Voronezh and Belgorod, also reported a Ukrainian drone strike overnight. They did not mention any injuries.
In Ukraine, a 35-year-old man and his four-year-old son were killed in the Kiev region when a rocket fragment fell on homes, emergency services said on Sunday.
Three others were injured, including a 13-year-old boy.
Kiev Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko wrote on Telegram early Sunday morning that air defense units were “operational” and urged civilians to stay in shelters.
Ukraine’s rare incursion into Russia began on Tuesday morning, when about 1,000 troops, supported by tanks and armored vehicles, entered the Kursk region, Russia said.
Since then, the Ukrainians have reportedly captured several villages and even threatened the regional town of Sudzha.
A video emerged on Friday showing armed Ukrainian soldiers claiming to be in control of the city and a major Russian gas plant owned by the Gazprom company.
BBC Verify has confirmed that the footage did indeed come from the Gazprom facility on the northwestern outskirts of Sudzha, about 7km from the Ukrainian border. The video alone does not verify the claim that Ukrainian troops have taken the entire town.
Previously, Russian military bloggers had claimed that the city was still in Moscow’s hands.
BBC Verify has confirmed the location of another video posted online Friday morning. It shows a damaged, burned and abandoned Russian convoy of 15 vehicles on a road through the town of Oktyabrskoye, about 38km from the border on the Russian side.
The footage also shows Russian soldiers, some wounded, some possibly dead, among the vehicles.
Moscow has since sent reinforcements, including tanks and rocket launchers, to the Kursk region, saying Russian troops “continue to repel the attempted invasion” by Ukrainian forces.
The Russian claim has not been independently verified.
The United Nations nuclear agency on Friday urged both Russia and Ukraine to “exercise maximum restraint” as fighting approached the Kursk nuclear power plant, one of the largest such facilities in Russia.
The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said that measures must be taken “to avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences”.
The power plant is located about 60 km northeast of Sudzha.
