Putin orders army to 'dislodge' Ukraine as over 120,000 flee border

MOSCOW

Ukrainian servicemen operate a Soviet-made T-72 tank in the Sumy region, near the border with Russia, on August 12, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin ordered his army on Monday to "dislodge" Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory as authorities said over 120,000 people had been evacuated away from the fighting.

Kiev launched a surprise offensive into Russia's western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.

Ukraine's military chief Oleksandr Syrsky told President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video posted Monday that his troops now control about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory and are continuing "offensive operations".

Putin told a televised meeting with government officials that "one of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord" and "destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society".

"The main task is, of course, for the defense ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories," he said.

Zelensky told the nation in his evening address that the cross-border offensive was "purely a security issue", capturing "areas from which the Russia army struck at our Sumy region".

Some 121,000 people have fled the Kursk region since the start of the fighting, which has killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121 more, regional governor Alexei Smirnov told the meeting with Putin.

Authorities in Kursk announced on Monday they were widening their evacuation area to include a district with some 14,000 residents. The neighbouring Belgorod region also said it was evacuating a new border district.

Ukraine has pierced into the region by at least 12 kilometres (seven miles) and has captured 28 towns and villages, with the new front 40 kilometres long, Smirnov said.

But Syrsky said that "as of now, about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory are under control," suggesting the area captured is more than twice as large.

He said that fighting was ongoing along almost the whole front and "the situation is under our control".

Putin said Russia would respond by showing "unanimous support for all those in distress" and claimed there had been an increase in men signing up to fight.

"The enemy will receive a worthy riposte," he said.

  'Maximum losses' 

The assault appeared to catch the Kremlin off guard. Russia's army rushed in reserve troops, tanks, aviation, artillery and drones in a bid to quash it.

But it conceded on Sunday that Ukraine had penetrated up to 30 kilometres (20 miles) into Russian territory in places.

A Ukrainian security official told AFP, on condition of anonymity over the weekend, that "the aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border".

The Ukrainian official said thousands of Ukrainian troops were involved in the operation.

Russia's defense ministry said on Monday that its air defense systems had destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones — including 11 over the Kursk region.

  'It's scary' 

Smirnov said Monday that more than 46,000 residents in the Kursk region have applied for financial assistance.

Russia's rail operator has meanwhile organised emergency trains from Kursk to Moscow, around 450 kilometres away, for those fleeing.

"It's scary to have helicopters flying over your head all the time," said Marina, who arrived by train in Moscow on Sunday, declining to give her surname. "When it was possible to leave, I left."

Across the border in Ukraine's Sumy region, AFP journalists on Sunday saw dozens of armoured vehicles daubed with a white triangle — the insignia apparently being used to identify Ukrainian military hardware deployed in the attack.

At an evacuation centre in the regional capital of Sumy, 70-year-old retired metal worker Mykola, who fled his village of Khotyn some 10 kilometres from the Russian border, welcomed Ukraine's push into Russia.

"Let's let them find out what it's like," he told AFP. "They don't understand what war is. Let them have a taste of it."

Analysts think Kiev may have launched the assault to relieve pressure on its troops in other parts of the frontline.

Russia's defense ministry said Monday troops had "accelerated the speed of advance" in the eastern Donetsk region and taken the hamlet of Lysychne in their push towards the city of Pokrovsk.

The Ukrainian official said Kiev's troops "are not pulling back troops from the (Donetsk) area," while "the intensity of Russian attacks has gone down a little bit".

The Ukrainian official said he expected Russia would "in the end" stop the Kursk incursion.

Ukraine was bracing for a large-scale retaliatory missile attack, including "on decision-making centres" in Ukraine, the official said.