Ukraine claimed on Friday to be continuing its unprecedented advance into Russia’s Kursk region, saying it wanted to force Russia into “fair” negotiations after nearly two and a half years of a large-scale invasion of its territory by Moscow.
The Russian army, for its part, is maintaining its pressure further south, in Ukraine’s Donbas region, where it has had the upper hand for several months against Kyiv’s outnumbered forces.
“Attack group troops are continuing the fight and have advanced in some sectors by one to three kilometers,” Ukrainian army commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky broadcast Friday evening.
General Syrskyi maintained that Ukrainian forces were continuing to take prisoners among Russian soldiers, and President Zelensky in the evening welcomed the “destruction” of Russian positions in the area.
Earlier on Friday, the Kremlin’s army once again assured that it was “repelling” Ukrainian offensives.
Kyiv claims to have captured in particular the town of Sudzha, located 10 kilometers from the border and home to a major gas hub belonging to Russian giant Gazprom, which supplies Europe via Ukraine.
At least 12 civilians have been killed and over a hundred wounded since the start of the Ukrainian operation, according to the Russian authorities.
Refugee Flows
Faced with the unprecedented advance of Ukrainian forces into Russian territory, tens of thousands of civilians have already fled the border villages of the Kursk region.
In the town of the same name, several dozen kilometers from the fighting, a church welcomed refugees on Friday, according to AFP journalists on the scene.
The evacuations are taking place as fighting continues in the area. During one of them, two Russian aid workers were killed in a Ukrainian strike on Friday, according to their organization.
In the evening, the governor of the neighboring Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced that he was blocking access to and evacuating five border localities, while “temporarily” closing access to a sixth.
Russian Pressure in the East
On the Ukrainian side, the flow of evacuees also continued on Friday towards the town of Sumy, capital of the eponymous Ukrainian region opposite the Russian region of Kursk.
Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued further south, in eastern Ukraine, the epicenter of the conflict, where the Russian army has been nibbling away at territory for months, despite heavy losses.
On Friday, Moscow claimed the capture of a new village, Serguiïvka, some 15 km from the town of Pokrovsk, a logistical hub on the road to the strongholds of Chassiv Iar and Kostiantynivka.
The day before, Russian forces had claimed the capture of another village in this sector, where they have been advancing since May.
Russia said Saturday it had repelled Ukrainian forces near the town of Korenevo and the villages of Russkoye and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye in the Kursk border region.
Florent Vergnes, with AFP
