At least 76,000 residents of the Russian province of Kursk, bordering Ukraine, have been evacuated as fighting between Moscow and Kiev troops in the region has entered its fifth day, a spokesman for the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the area has reported in statements to the TASS news agency. The Kremlin has also declared a state of emergency in two other provinces in the area. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged, although without mentioning Kursk, that the country’s Armed Forces are carrying out operations to harm Russia on its territory: “The Chief of the General Staff, Oleksander Sirski, has already reported several times about the front and our actions, and about how to take the war to the territory of the aggressor. (…) Ukraine shows that it knows how to restore justice and apply the necessary pressure on the aggressor,” he wrote in a message on his social networks.
Russia has been fighting kyiv’s troops in Kursk since August 6, in what is considered Ukraine’s largest incursion into its enemy’s territory since the start of its invasion of the country in February 2022.
For the evacuated population, the Russian authorities have set up 60 temporary accommodation spaces, where more than 4,400 people from the border areas of Kursk have been relocated, according to the General Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. In addition, the Red Cross has opened a telephone hotline to deal with cases of possible disappearances during the transfers and Moscow has authorized aid of 10,000 rubles (about 100 euros) for those affected.
The Ukrainian offensive took Moscow by surprise and led the Kremlin to declare a federal state of emergency on Saturday in two other regions bordering Ukraine – Belgorod and Bryansk – in addition to Kursk, where it was established on Friday.
The declaration of a federal state of emergency is a tool that gives the military and security forces broad powers during anti-terrorist operations, which is how Ukraine’s aggression has been described. It allows military and human resources to be sent without restrictions, but also allows security to be strengthened in key places, citizens’ movements to be restricted, telephone calls to be intercepted, vehicles to be confiscated and no-go zones to be declared. The National Anti-Terrorist Committee reported that these operations had begun in the three affected regions “to ensure the safety of citizens and to suppress the threat of terrorist acts carried out by enemy sabotage groups,” as it described the Ukrainian incursion.
The high number of evacuees contrasts with the information provided two days ago by the Russian Chief of Staff, Valeri Gerasimov, to President Vladimir Putin, when he assured him that the Ukrainian advance had been halted.
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The Russian Ministry of Defense has sent messages over the past 24 hours about the continuation of the fighting along the same lines. On its Telegram account, it claims that the operation to destroy units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is continuing, provides high figures of losses on the opposing side – up to 1,120 soldiers and 140 armored vehicles – and distributes videos of alleged armed operations with tanks and aircraft in which they are “crushing the enemy” thanks to the use of artillery, aviation and ground troops. These reports have not been able to be independently verified, and Ukraine has still not made any official announcement about its casualties or movements in that Russian province.
In Kursk, satellite images verified by war analyst groups indicate that the Ukrainian army has penetrated some 35 kilometers into Russian territory.
However, the think tank The US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says that to counter the situation, the Russian military command is relying on units already deployed in the border zone and others available in the rear, most of which are made up of conscripts and irregular forces. “These units will probably be the first to respond, although the Russian military command has decided to transfer additional, more experienced units from elsewhere,” it says in its daily analysis.
The analysis suggests that the Russian military command may be resisting operational pressures to redeploy forces from other fronts and prevent the Ukrainian incursion from disrupting its offensive in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow has made significant gains in recent weeks.
In this regard, ISW highlights information provided by a Russian military blogger, who suggested that the Russian military command may be transferring units it had accumulated for an offensive operation in the north of the Kharkiv region. “If this is true, then perhaps the military command has decided that the interruption of the offensive operation in the north of the Kharkiv region is a necessary sacrifice,” the Institute analyses, which also sees it likely that a broader deployment of Russian troops from frontline areas will be slower, and that additional combat-ready frontline units will begin to arrive in Kursk in the coming days.
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