Russia on Saturday announced what it called an anti-terror operation to boost security in the Kursk border region, where an invasion this week by Ukrainian troops surprised the Russian forces and exposed their military vulnerabilities in the near 2½ year old war.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that fighting continues in the Kursk region and that the military has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian troops, using a thermobaric bomb, among other things. This bomb produces a blast wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates the targets.
The measures announced for Kursk and the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions, which border Ukraine, allow the government to relocate residents, monitor telephone connections and seize vehicles.
Press service of the Russian Ministry of Defense via AP
The raid that started on Tuesday is the largest cross-border excursion of the war and there are concerns that the fighting will spread far beyond Ukraine.
In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are stationed but which has not yet sent its own army to Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday that air defenses shot down unknown objects launched from Ukraine and flying over Belarusian territory.
“I don’t understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to sort it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that provocations will not go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to the state news agency Belta.
Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin later identified the objects as drones and said Lukashenko had ordered troop reinforcements to be sent to the border areas.
A missile fired by a Russian plane struck a Ukrainian shopping mall on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 44 others, authorities said.
ACTING GOVERNOR OF THE KURSK REGION/Handout via Reuters
The shopping center in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is located in the residential area of the city. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Vadym Filashkin, the head of the Donetsk region, said in a Telegram message.
It was the second major attack on the city in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile hit an open-air market there, killing 17 people.
July saw the highest number of civilian casualties in Ukraine since October 2022, the UN human rights mission in Ukraine said on Friday. Conflict-related violence killed at least 219 civilians and injured 1,018 in the month, the mission said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that reinforcements are being sent to Kursk to counter the Ukrainian attack. Russia is deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles.
The ministry reported fighting on the outskirts of Sudzha, about six miles from the border. The city is a major pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas exports to Europe.
There is little reliable information about the daring Ukrainian operation and its strategic goals are unclear. Ukrainian officials have declined to comment on the raid, which is taking place about 320 miles southwest of Moscow.
Asked about the Ukrainian incursion, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that the United States is “in contact with our Ukrainian counterparts” but would not comment until “those conversations are concluded.”
“There’s no change in our policy approaches,” Kirby said when asked about U.S. policy on weapons use. “They’re using it in an area where we previously said they could use U.S. weapons for cross-border strikes. The ultimate goal here is to help Ukraine defend itself.”
Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the Ukrainians appear to have a clear goal, even if they are not saying what that goal is.
“Such a coordinated ground troop movement is a response to a clear military objective,” Boulegue told The Associated Press. The raid also frightened the Russian public and slapped Russian President Vladimir Putin in the face, giving Ukraine “a great PR coup,” he said.
The attack “is a huge symbol, a huge demonstration of power (that shows) that the war is not frozen,” he said.
