Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed Kyiv’s troops are fighting inside Russia, days into the surprise Ukrainian cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that has become a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.
“Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation on Saturday, thanking “every unit” of Ukraine’s armed forces for making it possible “to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.”
The statement marked the first time Zelensky officially acknowledged the incursion, which took by surprise both Russia and Ukraine’s allies. Ukrainian officials have for days remained tight-lipped about the operation, even as photographs, videos and firsthand reports of Ukrainian soldiers inside Russia started to emerge.
Moscow has been scrambling to contain the attack. Russian authorities imposed a sweeping counterterrorist operation in Kursk and two other border regions and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from Kursk.
Now into its sixth day, the attack on Kursk is a significant development in the more than two-year old conflict.
Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the border region of Belgorod with airstrikes and pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups have conducted limited cross-border attacks, but the Kursk operation marked the first time that regular Ukrainian and special operations units have entered Russian territory.
The surprise factor appear to have worked: as of Sunday, Russian troops seemed to struggle to stop the Ukrainian advances and push Kyiv troops back.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitoring group, said in its latest assesment on Sunday that geolocated footage and Russian reporting from Saturday indicated that Ukrainian forces maintained their positions in the region and have advanced slightly further.
By Friday Russian authorities had lost control over at least 250 square kilometers of territory, according to several independent analyses and CNN’s mapping.
The governor of Kursk region has urged authorities there to speed up evacuations on Sunday. More than 76,000 people from the border areas had left their homes as as of Saturday, according to the Russian state news agency TASS .
