KYIV, Ukraine — Days after Ukraine began a surprise military incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy broke the government’s silence on it late Saturday by indirectly acknowledging ongoing military actions to “push the war out into the aggressor’s territory” in his nightly address.
Overnight into Sunday, a Russian drone and missile barrage on Kyiv killed two people including a 4-year-old boy, while in Russia, Kursk’s regional governor said 13 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, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service on Sunday. Another three people in the district were also injured in the attack.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration said it was the second time this month Kyiv was targeted.
Popko said ballistic missiles did not reach the capital but that suburbs took the hit, while drones aiming for the capital were shot down.
Ukraine’s incursion continued for a sixth day on Sunday and is unprecedented for its use of Ukrainian military units on Russian soil. The exact aims of the operation remain unclear and Ukrainian military officials have adopted a policy of secrecy, presumably to ensure its success.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry said 35 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.
But in Saturday’s evening address, Zelenskyy referred to army chief Oleksandr Syrsky’s briefings “on the front line and our actions and pushing the war into the aggressor’s territory.”
Thanking the soldiers involved, he added: “Ukraine is proving that it can really bring justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor.”
Russia’s army on Saturday confirmed it was still fighting the Ukrainian incursion for a fifth day.
It said Kyiv’s forces had initially crossed the border with around 1,000 troops, 20 armored vehicles and 11 tanks, though it claimed on Saturday to have destroyed five times that much military hardware so far.
‘Unprecedented’
Russia’s national anti-terrorism committee said late Friday it was starting counterterror operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions to protect citizens.
The Belgorod and Bryansk regions bordering Ukraine have also been hit hard by shelling and aerial attacks since Russia launched its offensive in February 2022.
Security forces and the military have sweeping emergency powers during counterterror operations.
Movement is restricted, vehicles can be seized, phone calls can be monitored, areas are declared no-go zones, checkpoints introduced, and security is beefed up at key infrastructure sites.
On the streets of Moscow Saturday, AFP journalists found support for tough measures to quell the response, but also some anger at how the incursion had been allowed to happen.
“We have to take all the steps that are possible in such a situation,” said Alexander Ilyin, a 42-year-old architect.
The anti-terrorism committee said Ukraine had mounted an “unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation in a number of regions of our country.”
Russia on Friday appeared to hit back, launching a missile strike on a supermarket in the east Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka that killed at least 14 people.
Another three were killed in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Saturday, local officials said.
Ukraine also said it had to evacuate 20,000 people from the Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk.
While neither side has provided precise details on Ukraine’s incursion, Russia’s defense ministry on Saturday said it had hit some Ukrainian positions as far as 10 kilometers inside Russia.
It also reported hitting Ukrainian troops in areas 30 kilometers apart, an indication as to the breadth, as well as depth of Ukraine’s advance.
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.
‘Particularly effective’
Russia’s nuclear agency on Saturday warned 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 in advance.
Elsewhere on the front line, Ukraine on Saturday reported the lowest number of “combat engagements” on its territory since June 10.
That could be a sign its incursion is helping to relieve pressure on other parts of the sprawling front line where Moscow’s troops had been advancing.
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