Ukraine claimed new advances in its offensive against Russia on Thursday.
Kiev:
Ukraine claimed new progress in its offensive against Russia on Thursday, saying it had captured more than 1,100 square kilometers in the biggest attack by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II.
Russia said it had recaptured a first village from Ukrainian forces in the Kursk border area and announced it would send “additional troops” to the neighboring Belgorod region.
Ukraine said it now controlled dozens of settlements and Sudzha, a town eight kilometers from the border.
“We have taken control of 1,150 square kilometers of territory and 82 settlements,” said top military commander Oleksandr Syrsky.
Ukrainian forces launched the offensive on August 6, ending months of setbacks for the army that had been fighting a Russian invasion for more than two years.
The top general also told President Volodymyr Zelensky that the army had set up an administrative office “to maintain law and order and meet the priority needs of the population in the controlled areas.”
Zelensky announced “the completion of the liberation of the city of Sudzha from the Russian army.”
– 120,000 Russians displaced –
At an Orthodox church in the center of Sumy, the regional hub across the border with Kursk, dozens of mourners gathered Thursday to pay their last respects to six Ukrainian soldiers killed during the offensive.
Tearful relatives received a steady stream of friends and relatives wearing black robes and wreaths as the priest sang a funeral Mass and incense hung in the air.
“It is difficult to say goodbye to them because we want them to live forever, to live among us as honored sons of their homeland,” the priest told mourners.
“Our job is to pray for our heroic fighters and their families.”
The pallbearers lifted the coffins one by one for burial as a choir sang hymns. Air raid sirens blared over Sumy as the service ended.
In Kursk, AFP reporters saw about 500 evacuees from border areas queuing for food and clothing distributed by the Russian Red Cross.
– ‘Completed destruction’ –
The attack took Russian troops by surprise and led to mass evacuations. Russia says more than 120,000 people have left or been evacuated.
Russian authorities say at least 12 civilians have been killed and 121 others injured in the fighting.
Moscow gathered reinforcements and announced the recapture of a first village in the Kursk region on Thursday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the army had “completed the destruction of the enemy and restored control over the Krupets settlement.”
The Russian military also announced measures to prevent attacks on neighboring regions, especially Belgorod.
Russia has prepared “concrete actions” to defend Belgorod from Ukrainian attacks, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said at a meeting with officials including Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
They include “the allocation of additional troops”.
Kursk and Belgorod have seen small incursions since President Vladimir Putin launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but nothing of this magnitude.
– Intensity of attacks –
Ukrainian officials have argued that the offensive was an act of “self-defense” and experts suggest it could be aimed at relieving pressure from the eastern front.
Ukrainian forces are still struggling in the eastern Donbas region, a key Russian target.
“Most of the Russian attacks are taking place” in the Donbas, Zelenskiy said, adding: “We are paying maximum defensive attention.”
Local authorities in three Ukrainian regions reported at least five civilian deaths in Russian attacks, including Donetsk in the east, Kharkov in the northeast and Kherson in the south.
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Russia said its forces had captured Ivanivka in Donetsk, a frontline village just 15 kilometers from Kiev-held Pokrovsk transport hub in eastern Ukraine.
Located at the intersection of a major road supplying Ukrainian troops and towns on the Eastern Front, Pokrovsk has long been a Russian target.
In a briefing, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its army had “liberated the village of Ivanovka,” using the Russian name for the village.
Russian troops have been moving toward Pokrovsk for months, capturing a series of villages on their way to the city’s outskirts.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)