UKRAINE launched drone and missile attacks on several Russian border areas Saturday night. Russia’s Defense Ministry said early yesterday that its air defenses destroyed 14 drones and four Tochka-U tactical missiles in the Kursk border region.
The Russian military also shot down 16 drones in the eastern Voronezh region and three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over Belgorod. Drones were also shot down in the Bryansk and Oryol regions.
A Ukrainian missile that hit a high-rise building in the city of Kursk overnight injured 13 people, acting Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app, reported by Newsweek. In a separate statement carried by Russian state media on Monday, Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said 69 people who were injured in the shelling in the Kursk region were being treated in hospitals.
Zelensky said Saturday that he had heard from Kyiv’s military chief, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, about the move to push the war into the aggressor’s territory. It was Zelensky’s first official acknowledgement of Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, the most significant incursion into Russian territory since the full-scale war began nearly two and a half years ago.
Kyiv’s objectives remain unclear and officials have been tight-lipped about the operation. Kyiv launched a cross-border offensive from the northeastern Sumy region to Kursk, prompting Russia to quickly transfer reinforcements to the border and begin evacuating residents. Moscow’s Emergency Situations Ministry said Saturday that more than 76,000 people had been evacuated so far.
Smirnov declared a state of emergency across the region on Wednesday. Russia said Saturday it would impose additional security measures in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk as part of an anti-terrorism operation. Cross-border attacks into Russia have previously been claimed by Russian groups aligned with Kyiv, but this is the first time regular Ukrainian forces have carried out such an operation.
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Ukraine continues to advance on Kursk. Reports suggest Kyiv has advanced about 13 miles into the area. The US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed on Saturday that the pace of confirmed gains on Kursk had slowed after Moscow moved several new units into the area.
Separately, yesterday, Voronezh region governor Alexander Gusev said air defenses destroyed more than 15 drones overnight. “Several buildings and an unspecified number of vehicles were damaged and about 100 residents were left without electricity,” he said.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a civilian was injured in the border town of Shebekino after three drones hit an apartment building, while another apartment block was damaged by UAVs. A separate building was damaged by drones in the neighboring village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, Gladkov said.
Further west in the region, three cars and a residential building were damaged in the village of Malinovka, and another house burned briefly in the border village of Berezovka, the governor said. (Z-2)
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