KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit Thursday to the border area where his forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia, saying that Kyiv’s military had taken control of another Russian village and captured more prisoners of war.
While in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, Zelenskyy said the new POWs from the Russian region of Kursk would help build an “exchange fund” to swap for captured Ukrainians.
Zelenskyy did not name the newly captured village and did not cross over into Russia, which would been regarded by Moscow as a provocation.
Zelenskyy said the Kursk operation launched Aug. 6 has reduced Russian shelling and civilian casualties in the Sumy region.
Authorities in the city of Kursk, the capital of the Kursk region, began to put up concrete shelters at bus stops and other locations to protect against shelling.
Smirnov reported to Putin that over 133,000 people have left areas affected by the fighting in the Kursk region, while more than 19,000 have stayed.
The governor of Bryansk, another Russian region bordering Ukraine, said authorities there have conducted training for emergency evacuation as a precaution.
Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry reported repelling Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka and several other settlements in the Kursk region.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — On his first visit to the border region where his forces initiated their surprise attack into Russia on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that his forces had taken control of a second Russian village and had taken additional prisoners of war.
Zelenskyy said that the new prisoners from the Kursk region of Russia would contribute to the creation of a “exchange fund” that would be used to exchange captured Ukrainians while he was in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine.
Zelenskyy posted on social media platform X, “Another settlement in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control, and we have replenished the exchange fund,” following his country’s top military commander, Col. The Gen. Alexander Syrskyi.
Zelenskyy avoided naming the recently taken village and avoided entering Russia, actions that Moscow would have seen as provocative. He has previously stated that Ukraine wants to establish a buffer zone to stop future attacks into Ukraine from that region, but does not have long-term plans to occupy the area.
Zelenskyy said that on August, the Kursk operation began. 6 has decreased civilian deaths and Russian shelling in the Sumy region.
Emergency officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region reported that a Ukrainian strike struck a cargo ferry carrying fuel tanks at the port of Kavkaz, igniting a fire. This is just another illustration of Ukraine’s escalating attacks against Russia. Situated on the Kerch Strait, which connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, is the port.
Videos allegedly showing a massive fire brought on by the strike were posted on Russian Telegram channels.
The audacious Ukrainian attack has shook the Kremlin, exposing Russia’s weakness and upending President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to act as though the nation has not been significantly impacted by the two and a half-year conflict.
Although Kyiv is still losing ground in eastern Ukraine, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia is the country’s first land grab of Russian territory since World War II.
In order to protect against shelling, authorities in Kursk, the region’s capital, started erecting concrete shelters at bus stops and other places. Similar work is planned in Kurchatov and Zheleznogorsk, where there is a nuclear power plant, according to the acting governor of the area. stated on his Telegram channel, Alexei Smirnov.
In a video conference with officials, Putin announced that he had given the go-ahead for the establishment of self-defense units in Russian areas that border Ukraine.
Smirnov told Putin that while over 19,000 people remained in the Kursk region, over 133,000 people had left the area affected by the fighting.
Another Russian area bordering Ukraine, Bryansk, has a governor who stated that emergency evacuation drills have been practiced there as a preventative measure.
In a related development, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had successfully repelled Ukrainian attacks in the Kursk region, close to the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka, and several others.
Sergey Kravtsov, the minister of education, announced that starting in September, 114 schools in Russia’s border regions will begin offering remote instruction.
Other news from the Defense Ministry on Thursday included the announcement that its armed forces had taken over the Ukrainian village of Mezhove in Donetsk, which is a part of the industrial Donbas region that Moscow wants to annex in its entirety.
Drones have been used by both sides in the conflict to launch attacks far behind enemy lines.
According to the Defense Ministry, Ukraine launched an overnight drone attack on Russia. According to the ministry, 13 were shot down over the Volgograd region, 7 over the Rostov region, 4 over the Belgorod region, 2 over the Voronezh region, and 1 over each of the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
The governor of the Volgograd region, Andrei Bocharov, reported on Thursday that a military facility in the Marinovka area, where Russia maintains a military air base, caught fire as a result of drone attacks. What was broken was not made clear by him.
Videos surfaced on Russian social media purporting to show an explosion in the night sky close to the base. The distance between Marinovka and the Ukrainian border is roughly 300 kilometers (185 miles).
The attack was attributed to Ukraine. The drone attack on the Marinovka airfield was carried out by Ukraine’s security service and its special operation forces on Wednesday night, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press. Since he was not permitted to speak in public, the official only agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.
Surrounding Russian law enforcement, the Baza Telegram channel reported that debris from one drone crashed on a trailer close to the air base, setting it on fire, and that another drone was shot down several kilometers (miles) from the airfield near Marinovka.
Fires were observed spreading around the air base’s apron, where fighter jets had previously been parked, according to data from NASA fire-watching satellites, which keep an eye out for forest fires on Earth.
As a result of an attack by the Ukrainians in the town of Proletarsk, an oil depot caught fire on Thursday in the Rostov region of Russia, where firefighters battled to douse the flames for a fifth day. According to state news agency Tass, 47 firefighters suffered injuries while battling the fire.
As of Wednesday, the oil depot fire was still raging fiercely, according to an analysis of satellite images from Planet Labs PBC conducted by The Associated Press on Thursday. Fires appeared to be consuming the facility’s storage tanks. The photos showed flames, and over the city of Proletarsk, a cloud of dense black smoke was moving west.
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