MOSCOW (AP) — Russia announced Saturday that it had evacuated tens of thousands of people from its border region and launched a “counterterrorism operation” as it struggled to engage a first Ukrainian incursion.
At the same time, Moscow warned that fighting in Russia’s western Kursk region endangered a nuclear plant.
Ukrainian teams crossed the border on Tuesday morning in what is the largest and most successful offensive of its kind through Kyiv in the two-and-a-half years of fighting so far.
Its troops traveled several kilometers, forcing the Russian army to look for reserves and more equipment; None of the aspects provided the exact main points of the forces engaged.
This came as explosions broke out in the middle of the night in the center and east of the Ukrainian capital kyiv this weekend, AFP journalists noted, as the Ukrainian air force announced that two Russian missiles were heading towards the city.
In the capital, air raid sirens sounded and at least two lightning flashes were seen in the sky, an AFP journalist said.
The Kiev army leadership reported in a message on Telegram that the city’s air defense systems were activated. The Ukraine Air Force said five more regions were targeted with drones.
In recent days, many Ukrainians have increasingly expressed the idea that Moscow will launch airstrikes in reaction to kyiv’s recent offensive on Russian territory.
Local officials detailed the scale of civilian evacuations from cities and towns near the combat zone.
“More than 76,000 people have been temporarily transferred to other places,” an official from the regional Ministry of Emergency Situations said through the official TASS news agency at a press briefing on Saturday.
Emergency aid was delivered to the border area and more trains to the capital Moscow were put into service for others fleeing the fighting.
“The war has come to us,” a woman, who did not want to call, told AFP after arriving at the Moscow exercise centre on Friday.
However, on Saturday night air raid sirens sounded in the Ukrainian capital, kyiv.
AFP journalists saw at least two flashes of lightning in the night sky and the Ukrainian air force said five other regions were hit by drones.
Kiev has maintained a strict operational silence on the offensive and for several days Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made indirect references to the fighting that took place there.
But in his speech on Saturday night, Zelensky referred to army leader Oleksandr Syrsky’s briefings “on the line and our movements and on how to take the war to the territory of the aggressor. “
Thanking the foot soldiers involved, he added: “Ukraine is showing that it can deliver justice and promises precisely the kind of tension needed: tension on the aggressor. »
The Russian army demonstrated on Saturday that it is continuing to fight the Ukrainian incursion for the fifth day.
According to him, kyiv’s forces first crossed the border with around 1,000 soldiers, 20 armored vehicles and 11 tanks, while claiming on Saturday that they had destroyed five times as much military equipment so far.
Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced on Friday night that citizens had been informed of “anti-terrorist operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions”.
The Belgorod and Bryansk regions, bordering Ukraine, have also been hit by shelling and airstrikes since the start of the Russian offensive in February 2022.
The security forces and military have broad emergency powers for “anti-terrorist” operations.
Movement is restricted, cars may be seized, phone calls are monitored, off-limits spaces are declared, checkpoints are set up, and security is heightened at key infrastructure sites.
On Saturday, on the streets of Moscow, AFP journalists sought difficult measures to quell the response, but also some anger at the way the raid was allowed to take place.
“We have to take every measure imaginable in a situation like this,” said Alexander Ilyin, a 42-year-old architect.
The anti-terrorism committee said Ukraine had introduced an “unprecedented scenario to destabilize the scenario in several regions of our country. “
On Friday, Russia gave the impression that it was going to retaliate by launching a missile attack on a supermarket in the eastern Ukraine city of Kostyantynivka, which killed at least 14 people.
Three more people died on Saturday in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, local officials said.
Ukraine also said it had to evacuate another 20,000 people from the Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk.
While none of the aspects provided explicit main points about the Ukrainian incursion, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that the Ukrainian incursion affected some positions up to 10 kilometers from the border.
He also reported attacking Ukrainian troops in spaces 30 kilometers away, an indication of the scale and intensity of Ukraine’s advance.
Belarus, a close best friend of Russia, on Saturday ordered the deployment of army reinforcements — base troops, air units, air defense and rocket systems — to its border with Ukraine in reaction to Kyiv’s incursion, its Defense Ministry said.