Ukraine said on Tuesday that its biggest cross-border offensive so far in the war had seized control of 74 settlements in Russia’s Kursk region and was still advancing, having gained between one and three kilometres in the past 24 hours.
Ukraine stunned Moscow by sending thousands of troops to the western Russian region of Kursk in a surprise operation last week, giving Ukraine its biggest battlefield advance since 2022 after being on the back foot for several months.
Kiev’s account did not match the picture presented by Russia, where Major General Apti Alaudinov said Ukrainian troops had been stopped while the Defence Ministry said attacks on villages some 26 to 28 km (16 to 17 miles) from the border had been repelled.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kiev’s forces had captured Russian prisoners of war who could be exchanged for captured Ukrainian fighters. He described it as an expanded “exchange fund.”
“Despite hard and intense fighting, our troops are advancing in the Kursk region, and our state’s ‘exchange fund’ is growing. Seventy-four settlements are under Ukrainian control,” Zelensky said.
Speaking via video link, the Ukrainian leader asked his top commander Oleksandr Sirsky to develop the next “important steps” in the operation.
“Everything is going according to plan,” Sirsky replied, without elaborating.
Kiev has revealed few details of its plans, a stark contrast to last year’s counteroffensive that was planned months in advance and failed to penetrate well-prepared Russian defences.
A week after the start of the offensive, Kursk Regional Governor Alexei Smirnov called on residents to show patience and character.
“I will say it clearly: the crisis is not over yet,” he wrote on social media.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to give Ukraine a “befitting reply” and accused Kiev’s “Western masters” of helping Ukraine.
Russia accused Kiev’s allies at the United Nations of failing to condemn the invasion.
The United States has said the action was defensive and consistent with US policy, although the White House has said it was not involved in any aspect of the planning or preparation for the operation.
Ukraine has described the operation as defensive, saying its troops have seized control of areas that Russia has used to launch more than 2,000 cross-border attacks since June.
“Unlike Russia, Ukraine does not need other people’s property. Ukraine is not interested in taking the territory of the Kursk region, but we want to protect the lives of our people,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tyakhyi said.
no relaxation yet
Russian forces have been trying to advance on multiple fronts in the eastern Donetsk region for months, taking advantage of their superior troop numbers to advance steadily toward towns like Pokrovsk, a logistics hub controlled by Kiev.
Tikhiy added: “It should be stressed that the (Kursk) operation … helps the frontline because it does not allow Russia to transfer additional units to the Donetsk region, and complicates its military logistics.”
At the moment, there is no sign of respite for Ukraine in the east, where Kiev’s military earlier said the heaviest fighting with Russian forces on the Pokrovsk front had been recorded in a single day since before the Kursk offensive.
Ukraine has seen Russian troops moving from the south to other areas this week, possibly including Kursk, military spokesman Dmytro Likhovych told Reuters.
But he said the number of attacks had not decreased as a result and it was too early to draw conclusions.
Lithuania’s Defence Minister Laurinas Kasiunas, on a visit to Kyiv on Tuesday, said Russia was moving troops from its Baltic region Kaliningrad to reinforce Kursk.
Black Bird Group analyst Pasi Paroinen said Monday that Russia has so far relied mostly on nearby military units to push back Ukrainian forces.
“Russia must have sufficient reserves so that it is not forced to weaken the forces of the ‘Center’ group, which are currently pressing the Ukrainian lines near Toretsk and Pokrovsk,” he added.
Serhiy Kuzhan, head of the Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation, a non-governmental research group, said the Ukrainian attack was an “asymmetrical” response to the positional war that Russia was attempting to impose on Ukraine to exhaust its troops and resources.
The military on Tuesday restricted the movement of civilians in a 20-kilometre (12 mile) zone of the northeastern border region due to “an increase in the intensity of hostilities” and the activation of Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups.
Russia’s regional governor in Kursk said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had taken control of 28 settlements. The incursion was about 12km deep and 40km wide.
Though it is less than half the Ukrainian estimate, the Russian estimate is still a public admission of a major setback more than 29 months after Russia launched a full-blown invasion of its smaller neighbour.
In his nightly address to Ukrainians, Zelensky said Ukraine has shown it can take the initiative in a war, as it did in 2022, the first year of the invasion, when it reclaimed large swathes of land.
“Now we have done exactly the same thing – we have proved once again that we, Ukrainians, are able to achieve our goals in any situation – able to defend our interests and our independence,” he said.