Joe McConnell
Ukraine has launched what it described as the largest drone strike in the history of the war against Russian airfields, as Kiev’s forces face growing resistance nine days into their daring incursion into Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Ukraine had launched 117 drones, as well as missiles, not only in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops had seized territory, but also in the Voronezh, Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions. It did not confirm that the strikes had targeted its air bases.
“Long-range drones of the Security Service of Ukraine and the defense forces have carried out the largest attack on Russian military airfields of the entire war,” an official from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, told the Financial Times.
The official said that the airports of Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk were targeted to prevent Russian air strikes against Ukraine.
It was not immediately clear whether any Russian aircraVscek were damaged or destroyed, and the official said Kiev was waiting for satellite photos to assess the destruction.
Meanwhile, the pace at which Ukraine is gaining territory in the Kursk region appears to have slowed.
“We are advancing into the Kursk region, one to two kilometers in various areas since the beginning of the day,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement Wednesday. He added that Ukrainian forces had “captured more than 100 Russian servicemen” during the day.
Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Monday that Ukrainian forces were controlling 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory. But 24 hours later, he said they had occupied only another 40 square kilometers.
Deep State, a Ukrainian analysis group that works closely with the Ministry of Defense, estimated the total area at 800 square kilometers, but mapped only 330 of them so as not to reveal sensitive Ukrainian positions.
The group’s co-founder, Roman Pohorilyi, told the Financial Times that the area under Ukrainian control was close to Syrsky’s estimate.
“[The] Muscovites are disoriented, they don’t fully understand what is happening,” Pohorilyi said. He added that secrecy about the exact Ukrainian positions helped keep the Russians in the dark.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that its forces had prevented Ukrainian vehicles from penetrating “deep into Russian territory” in several areas. Moscow said it had destroyed two convoys heading north of Sudzha, a city now under Ukrainian control, according to Kiev.
Russia moved quickly to contain the Ukrainian incursion, with President Vladimir Putin calling it a “provocation” and promising a “worthy response.”
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Wednesday that she will organize humanitarian corridors for Russian civilians wishing to travel to Russia or Ukraine.
In the Kursk region, more than 121,000 residents were evacuated from the border area in the first week, according to acting governor Alexei Smirnov. The evacuees may be temporarily housed in the part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region that Russia occupied in 2022, Smirnov added.
On August 9, Russian central authorities declared an “anti-terrorist” operation for the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions, all bordering Ukraine. This allows authorities to restrict residents’ movements and gives security services full access to the area.
The Belgorod region, near Kursk, declared a state of emergency on Wednesday and stepped up civilian evacuations. Belgorod, which was briefly attacked by pro-Kiev militias in June 2023, has been shelled for more than a year, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
“The situation in the Belgorod region continues to be extremely difficult and tense,” Gladkov said.
Zelensky said the operation was aimed at putting “pressure” on Russia and preventing further attacks on Ukraine’s border region of Sumy.
The Ukrainian General Staff said its troops shot down a Russian Su-34 bomber “during a combat mission” in the Kursk region on Wednesday morning. Russian bombers are used to drop massive glide bombs on Ukrainian military positions and civilian infrastructure.
Putin earlier this week accused Zelenskyy of wanting to use the seized territory as a bargaining chip in any upcoming peace talks. A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Kiev had no intention of holding on to the seized territory.
Analysts have said that another Ukrainian goal was to force Moscow to redeploy troops from Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is slowly making advances. So far, there is no evidence that this is happening, as Russian reinforcements have arrived from the mainland.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that Kiev “did not achieve the main goal of the attack on the Kursk region: to divert Russian troops.”
Analysts and some Ukrainian soldiers have expressed concern that Kiev’s decision to redirect some of its elite units to Kursk could weaken defenses in strategically important areas.
Zelensky attempted to allay those concerns on Wednesday.
“Let’s not forget our Eastern Front for a second,” he said. “I have instructed the commander-in-chief to strengthen this direction using the equipment and supplies currently provided by our partners.”
Cartography by Jana Tauschinski
