Ukrainian Plivent Volodymyr Zelensky has acunderstandledged for the first time that his military is carry outing a traverse-border insulting inside Russia’s weserious Kursk region.
In his video insertress tardy on Saturday, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine’s military was pushing the war onto “the aggressor’s territory”.
Kyiv begined its surpelevate strike on Tuesday, rapidly advancing more than 10km (six miles) inside Russia – the meaningfulest raid since Moscow began its filled-scale intrusion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In Ukraine, the capital Kyiv and cut offal other regions came under a Russian drone and leave outile strike in the punctual hours of Sunday, local officials said.
In his insertress, Plivent Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s “warriors”, and said he had converseed the operation in Russia with the country’s top military directer Oleksandr Syrskyi.
“Ukraine is proving that it can indeed revamp equitableice and secure the vital presdeclareive on the aggressor,” he inserted.
Russia has so far struggled to cmitigate the Ukrainian progress, with more than 76,000 people evacuated from the Kursk region and a “counter-dread” regime imposed atraverse three border areas.
This uncomfervents authorities in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions can recut offe the relocatement of people and vehicles and use phone tapping among other meadeclareives.
The battling materializeed to be ongoing on Saturday night, with Kursk Governor Aleksei Smirnov saying punctual on Sunday that there were injured people in a “tachieveerous” Ukrainian strike.
He earlier alerted that 13 people were injured tardy on Saturday when the wreckage of a downed Ukrainian leave outile fell on a multi-storey erecting in the regional capital Kursk.
The regulateors of Russia’s neighbouring Voronezh and Belgorod regions also alerted a Ukrainian drone strike overnight. They did not allude any injuries.
In Ukraine, a 35-year-elderly man and his four-year-elderly son were finished in the Kyiv region when a rocket fragment fell on livential houses, aelevatency services said on Sunday.
Three more were wounded, including a 13-year-elderly child.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko posted on Telegram punctual on Sunday morning that air defence units were “operating” and alerted civilians to stay in shelters.
Ukraine’s exceptional incursion into Russia began on Tuesday morning, when up to 1,000 troops, aided by tanks and armoured vehicles, accessed the Kursk region, Russia said.
The Ukrainians have since alertedly seized a number of villages, and are also dangerening the regional town of Sudzha.
On Friday, a video aelevated shotriumphg armed Ukrainian selderlyiers who claimed to have deal with over the town, as well as a key Russian gas facility there owned by the Gazprom company.
BBC Verify has verifyed that the footage was indeed from the Gazprom facility on the north-weserious outskirts of Sudzha, about 7km from the border with Ukraine. The video alone does not verify the claim that Ukrainian troops have consentn the whole town.
Russian military bloggers earlier claimed that the town was still in Moscow’s hands.
BBC Verify verifyed the location of another video posted online on Friday morning. It shows a 15-vehicle Russian convoy injured, burned and leaveed on a road thcimpolite the town of Oktyabrskoe, cimpolitely 38km from the border on the Russian side.
The footage also shows Russian selderlyiers – some injured, some possibly dead – among the vehicles.
Moscow has since sent reinforcements – including tanks and rocket-beginer systems – to the Kursk region, saying that Russian troops were “continuing to drive away the tryed intrusion” of Ukrainian forces.
The Russian claim has not been autonomously verified.
On Friday, the UN nuevident agency inspired both Russia and Ukraine to “exercise peak regulatet” as the battling was edging sealr to the Kursk nuevident power schedulet – one of the hugegest such facilities in Russia.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi said meadeclareives must be consentn “to elude a nuevident accident with the potential for solemn radioreasonable consequences”.
The power schedulet is discoverd about 60km north-east of Sudzha.
