In an effort to stage a first Ukrainian incursion, Russia announced Saturday that it had evacuated tens of thousands of people from its border region and launched a “counterterrorism operation. ”
At the same time, Moscow warned that fighting in Russia’s western Kursk region endangered a nuclear plant.
Ukrainian forces crossed the border on Tuesday morning in what is so far the largest and maximum offensive of its kind carried out in kyiv in the two and a half years of conflict.
His troops traveled several kilometers, forcing the Russian army to send reserves and additional equipment; neither aspect provided the exact main points of the forces engaged.
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 has been delivered to the border area and more trains to the capital Moscow have been put into service for those fleeing the fighting.
“The war has come to us,” one of them, who declined to call, told AFP after arriving at the Moscow exercise centre on Friday.
Kyiv has maintained strict operational silence on the offensive and for several days Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made indirect references to the fighting there.
But in his speech on Saturday night, Zelensky referred to army leader Oleksandr Syrsky’s briefings “on the line and on our movements and on the advance of the war on 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.
He said kyiv’s forces first crossed the border with about 1,000 soldiers, 20 armored vehicles and 11 tanks, but said Saturday they had destroyed five times as much military equipment so far.
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee of Russia announced on Friday night the awareness of citizens 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 “counter-terrorist” operations.
Movement is restricted, cars can be impounded, phone calls can be monitored, no-go spaces are declared, checkpoints are set up, and security is heightened at key infrastructure sites.
On the streets of Moscow on Saturday, AFP journalists sought tough measures to quell the response, but also some anger at the way the incursion was allowed to happen.
“We will have to take every measure imaginable in such a situation,” said Alexander Ilyin, a 42-year-old architect.
The anti-terrorism committee stated that Ukraine had introduced an “unprecedented scenario to destabilize the situation 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 other people were killed Saturday in the northeastern Kharkiv region, 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 have provided explicit main points about the Ukrainian incursion, the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday that the operation affected some Ukrainian positions as far as 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.
Russia’s best friend Belarus 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 the kyiv incursion, its Defense Ministry announced. .
Russia’s nuclear company warned on Saturday of a “direct threat” to the neighboring Kursk nuclear plant, less than 50 kilometers from the fighting.
“The movements of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia, the official news agency quoted the atomic force firm Rosatom as saying.
On Friday, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, expressing concern, called for “maximum restraint. “
Despite what Zelensky said on Saturday, Ukrainian leaders have remained silent about the operation.
The United States, Kyiv’s closest ally, said it had been informed in advance of the plans.
Elsewhere along the line, Ukraine on Saturday reported the lowest number of “combat clashes” on its territory since June 10.
This may simply be a sign that their incursion is helping to ease tension elsewhere in the extensive front line where Moscow’s troops were advancing.