Ukrainian soldiers have captured 28 Russian villages after a week of cross-border attacks, while Russia has forced the evacuation of more than 180,000 people along the border.
Foreign news agencies reported that Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, announced on Monday, August 12, 2024, that they would expel the enemy from Russian territory. After Ukrainian soldiers attacked across the border into Russian territory. And took control of dozens of villages.
The scale of the Ukrainian offensive became clearer on Monday. It was the seventh day of the offensive, and Putin held a meeting with regional officials on the border. This included senior officials from the security services, government and law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of Russia's far western Kursk region, which is under heavy attack by Ukrainian soldiers, told Putin that 28 villages in his region were now under Ukrainian control, adding that Ukrainian soldiers had advanced 12 kilometers into the region along a 40-kilometer stretch of the border.
Smirnov said more than 180,000 people have received evacuation notices, and 121,000 have already been evacuated.
Mr. Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, which is next to each other, revealed in a statement published on Telegram that people living in the Krasnoyarsky district are being transferred to a safer place. After the enemy moved on the border
Mr. Andrey Miskov, head of the Krasnoyarsky District Administration, later came out to confirm that 11,000 people had already been evacuated.
The offensive on the Ukrainian border is seen as a potential game-changer in the war with Russia. It has been going on for more than two and a half years, with the Ukrainian military already occasionally firing rockets and shells into the Belgorod region. But they have never sent troops across the border to attack. As of August 6
But we had to wait until Saturday, August 10, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky came out to admit it. Ukraine was in fact attacking inside Russian territory. This was said to be done in order to push the war into the territory of the invading state. “Ukraine is proving it. They have managed to restore justice and exert the necessary pressure on the aggressors.”
In the past few days, a video has been posted on the Internet. It shows Ukrainian soldiers seizing the administrative building of the villages of Sverdlykovo (Sverdlykovo) and Buroz (Buroz), while the Ukrainian army claims to have captured several villages in the Kursk region. Including the Russian village of Givo, which is just 3 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, they posted a photo of them taking down the Russian flag from one of the administrative buildings.
While the Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement last Saturday that their forces were clashing with Ukrainian soldiers near the villages of Tolbino and Opshi Kolodz, 25 kilometers and 30 kilometers from the Ukrainian-Russian border respectively.
Incidentally, the Kursk region offensive comes just weeks after Russia made progress in attacking eastern Ukraine. By seizing several villages in a row, some analysts believe the Kursk region offensive may have been part of an attempt to force Russia to move its military forces from the east. And relieve pressure on the Ukrainian army.
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