Russia declares state of emergency as Ukrainian soldiers advance

KURSK,  Russia 

The acting governor of Russia’s Kursk region declared a state of emergency Wednesday for an area bordering Ukraine where Russia said it was battling Ukrainian fighters on Russian territory.

Alexei Smirnov’s emergency declaration came a day after what he said was a movement of Ukrainian troops and tanks into the Russian region.

It was not immediately clear what measures the emergency status would release, but several thousand people were reported to have been evacuated from the area.

A military blogger reported that fighting had reached the town of Sudzha, near where a Russian pipeline that supplies gas to Europe, via Ukraine, is located. Ukraine has agreed to keep the pipeline in Ukraine operational, as part of a contract that expires at the end of the year, The Guardian reported.

Ukraine hasn’t commented on the reports.

In his daily evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not mention Kursk directly. Instead, he said, “It is important to continue destroying our enemy – as precisely as our warriors can, and as resiliently as it contributes to the overall defense of our country, and as effectively as it produces results.”

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Ukraine had launched a “large-scale provocation" into Russia’s Kursk region, but the extent of the fighting was unclear.

The Russian leader met with his defense and security officials and said that Kyiv’s forces had carried out "indiscriminate shelling of civilian" targets in a second day of fighting in the region along the southwestern border with Ukraine.

News outlets have not been able to verify Russia’s claims.

At the White House, John Kirby, the national security spokesman, said the administration had contacted Ukraine about what was happening.

The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said it could not verify whether geolocated footage of damaged and abandoned armored vehicles 7 kilometers north of the border, west of Lyubimovka in the Kursk region, were Ukrainian.

The think tank also cast doubt on footage shared by Russian military bloggers claiming to show the aftermath of the Ukrainian raids. Most of the damage shown "appears to be the result of routine Ukrainian shelling and does not indicate that there was ground activity in the area," it said in its daily report.

Smirnov, the acting governor, urged residents to donate blood because of injuries in the fighting. He said Moscow’s forces have “been heroically resisting attacks" by Ukrainian fighters.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that up to 300 Ukrainian troops, supported by 11 tanks and more than 20 armored combat vehicles, had crossed into Russia but suffered heavy losses.

It said Russian forces backed by artillery and warplanes "didn't allow the enemy to advance deeper into the territory of the Russian Federation." Ukrainian officials declined to comment, and open-source monitors have not been able to verify the Russian claims.

The Kursk region's border with Ukraine is 245 kilometers long, making it possible for saboteur groups to launch swift incursions and capture some ground before Russia deploys reinforcements.

Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday it shot down four Ukrainian aerial drones over Kursk, a day after Russia said it repelled an attempt by hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers to breach the border region.

The defense ministry also said it destroyed three Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region, two drones over Voronezh and two others over Rostov.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that several apartment buildings were damaged, but there were no reported casualties.

The Ukrainian attacks also damaged apartment buildings in Voronezh, officials in the region said.

In Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region, Governor Vitaliy Kim said Ukrainian air defenses shot down 14 Russian aerial drones, with falling debris sparking several fires.

Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked with kamikaze drones and heavy artillery, damaging homes and several farm buildings.

Officials in the Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia regions also reported Wednesday that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed several Russian aerial drones.