KYIV, Ukraine — Russia claimed Sunday it has halted Ukraine’s advance into the western Kursk region in several places that are up to 30 kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.
For the first time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy indirectly acknowledged late Saturday that Kyiv’s forces had extended the fight into Russia in the last six days. But the Russian defense ministry said its troops had “foiled attempts by enemy mobile groups with armored vehicles to break through deep into Russian territory.”
Russia said it blocked the Ukrainian advance near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez in southwestern Russia, 25 and 30 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
In his nightly television address, Zelenskyy acknowledged ongoing Ukraine military actions to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.”
But fighting continued elsewhere, too.
Overnight into Sunday, a Russian drone and missile barrage targeting Kyiv killed two people, including a 4-year-old boy, while in Russia, Kursk’s regional governor said 15 people were wounded when a Ukrainian missile shot down by Russian air defenses fell on a residential building.
The bodies of a 35-year-old man and his son were found under rubble after fragments of missiles fell on a residential area in Kyiv’s suburban Brovary district, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Sunday. Another three people in the district were injured in the attack.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said it was the second time this month that the Kyiv metropolitan area was targeted.
Popko said ballistic missiles did not reach the capital but that the suburbs took the hit, while drones aiming for the area were shot down.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia reached its sixth day on Sunday and is unprecedented for its use of Ukrainian military units on Russian soil. The exact goals of the operation remain unclear. Ukrainian military officials have adopted a policy of secrecy, and Zelenskyy did not elaborate in his nightly address.
In Russia, the defense ministry said 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over the Kursk, Voronezh, Belgorod, Bryansk and Oryol regions.
Ukraine has not commented on the Sunday drone attacks inside Russia. But it comes as Ukraine has increased the pace of similar drone attacks largely targeting military infrastructure and oil depots in recent weeks.
In his Saturday address, Zelenskyy thanked his soldiers involved in the direct attack on Russia, saying, “Ukraine is proving that it can really bring justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor.”
Russia said Saturday Kyiv’s forces had initially crossed the border with about 1,000 troops, 20 armored vehicles and 11 tanks, although it claimed to have destroyed five times that much military hardware so far.
Belarus, Russia’s close ally, on Saturday ordered military reinforcements — ground troops, air units, air defense and rocket systems — to be deployed closer to its border with Ukraine in response to Kyiv’s incursion, its defense ministry said.
Russia’s nuclear agency warned Saturday of the threat to the nearby Kursk nuclear power station, less than 50 kilometers from the fighting.
“The actions of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk plant in western Russia, state news agencies cited its atomic energy agency Rosatom as saying.
On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressing similar concerns, had called for “maximum restraint.”
Zelenskyy’s comments Saturday notwithstanding, Ukraine’s leaders have remained tight-lipped on the operation.
The United States, Kyiv’s closest ally, said it had not been informed of the plans for the attack ahead of time.
Some material in this report came The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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