(Bloomberg) -- Russia dispatched military reinforcements to confront Ukrainian forces in an ongoing battle in its western Kursk region, the first foreign incursion on its territory since World War II.
The Defense Ministry in Moscow said Saturday that tanks had “taken up firing positions” against Ukrainian troops, whose surprise cross-border operation is the biggest assault on Russia since President Vladimir Putin ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine in a “special military operation” aimed at taking days or weeks.
Artillery and air strikes were deployed to prevent Ukrainian attempts to “break through deep into Russian territory” in the region, the ministry said in a Telegram statement.
Russia’s Federal Security Service announced a “counter-terrorism” regime in Kursk and the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk border regions on Saturday, a move that allows for restrictions on movement. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that was a response to Ukraine’s “unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation.”
Putin looked grim-faced at a regular meeting of his Security Council on Friday, though he offered no comment on the crisis that’s spiraling into the most serious wartime challenge to the Kremlin since last year’s short-lived mutiny by Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prighozin.
Russia’s air defenses downed 26 drones overnight in the Kursk region and another six over the Yaroslavl region northeast of Moscow, the Defense Ministry said on Telegram.
The Emergencies Ministry has evacuated more than 76,000 residents from border areas in the Kursk region in response to the fighting, the state-run Tass news service reported Saturday. Authorities in Moscow declared a federal emergency in the region on Friday.
While much of the situation on the battlefield remained unclear, Russian military bloggers reported Ukrainian advances as deep as 37 kilometers (23 miles) into the Kursk region.
Video posted on social media appeared to show a column of at least a dozen Russian troop vehicles that had been destroyed in the Rylsk district. The footage couldn’t be independently verified.
Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said the Kursk atomic power plant near the city of Kurchatov was operating normally, Tass reported Saturday. Rosatom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Likhachev discussed the situation in a phone call late Friday with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi, the company said in a statement on its website.
Fighting around the town of Sudzha, the site of a key transit point for the last remaining pipeline carrying Russian gas to Europe, helped push European natural gas prices to the highest level this year on fears of possible disruptions to supplies. Flows were reported to be continuing within the normal range.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy convened a meeting of his war council on Friday to hear military reports on “our defensive actions in the directions from which Russia launched attacks on” Ukraine, in a post on the X social media platform.
In his regular video address to Ukrainians later, Zelenskiy hinted at the progress of his military by thanking troops for “ensuring replenishment of the swap fund” in capturing Russian soldiers as prisoners of war, saying “it has been especially productive in the past three days.”
Officials in Kyiv have remained tight-lipped about the goals of the operation inside Russia, which has gained the endorsement of Ukraine’s US and European Union allies.
While the US doesn’t support “long-range attacks” into Russia, the intervention in Kursk is consistent with Washington’s policy on Ukraine’s use of American-supplied weapons, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters.
“Ukraine is fighting a legitimate defensive war against an illegal aggression,” said Peter Stano, lead spokesperson for the EU’s foreign affairs and security policy. “In the framework of this legitimate right to defend itself Ukraine is entitled to hit the enemy wherever it finds necessary on its territory, but also on the territory of the enemy.”
A Russian missile strike on a supermarket in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Friday killed at least 14 people and wounded 43 in the town of Kostyantynivka, the Emergency Service in Kyiv said on Telegram.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, bordering Kursk and other Russian regions, officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of as many as 20,000 residents from a 10-kilometer zone under fire.
While the Russian army offensive in eastern Ukraine goes on, the war that’s now in its third year has steadily spread, with Ukrainian forces targeting military objects and energy infrastructure far into Russia with drones and missiles.
The spectacular operation in Kursk is a boost for Ukrainian army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, who’s faced criticism over his leadership, Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta research institute in Kyiv, said in a Facebook post.
“We have been waiting for something like this for a long time,” Fesenko said.
--With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi.
(Updates with defense ministry, evacuation of residents from second paragraph.)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
