KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian army is intensifying its attacks in eastern Ukraine, military authorities said Tuesday, even as the Kremlin’s forces try to check a stunning weeklong incursion into Russia by Kyiv’s troops.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Tuesday that over the previous 24 hours Russian troops launched 52 assaults in the area of Pokrovsk, a town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that is close to the front line. That’s roughly double the number of daily attacks there a week ago.
Ukraine’s sensational charge onto Russian soil that began Aug. 6 has already encompassed some 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) of Russian territory, the Ukrainian military claims.
The goals of the swift advance into the Kursk region are a closely-guarded military secret.
But analysts say a catalyst may have been Ukraine’s desire to ease pressure on its front line by attempting to draw the Kremlin’s forces into defending Kursk and other border areas. If so, the increased pressure around Pokrovsk suggests Moscow didn’t take the bait.
Still, Ukraine’s cross-border operation — the largest attack on Russia since World War II — has rattled the Kremlin. It compelled Russian President Vladimir Putin to convene a meeting on Monday with his top defense officials.
Apparently, Ukraine assembled thousands of troops — some Western analysts reckon as many as 10,000 to 12,000 — on the border in recent weeks without Russia noticing or doing anything about it.
About 121,000 people have been evacuated from Kursk or have fled the areas affected by fighting on their own, Russian officials say. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said it has seen geolocated footage indicating that Ukrainian forces advanced as much as 24 kilometers (15 miles) from the border.
The Russian Defense Ministry appeared to support that claim when it said Tuesday it had blocked an attack by the units of the 82nd Air Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces towards Maryinka, which is about that distance from Ukraine.
Russian state television on Tuesday showed residents from evacuated areas queuing in buildings and on the street to receive food and water.
Volunteers were pictured distributing bags of aid, while officials from the country’s Ministry of Emergency Situations helped people, including children and the elderly, off buses.
“There is no light, no connection, no water. There is nothing. It’s as if everyone has flown to another planet, and you are left alone. And the birds stopped singing,” an elderly man called Mikhail told Russian state television. “Helicopters and planes fly over the yard and shells were flying. What could we do? We left everything behind.”
A motive behind Ukraine’s bold dive into Russia was to stir up unrest, according to Putin, but he said that effort would fail.
The successful border breach also was surprising because Ukraine has been short of manpower at the front as it waits for new brigades to complete training.
Dara Massicot, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, said the Ukrainian breakthrough was a smart move because it exploited gaps between various Russian commands in Kursk: border guards, Ministry of Defense forces and Chechen units that have been fighting on Russia’s side in the war.
Russian command and control is fractured in Kursk, Massicot said on X late Monday.
Ukraine’s Army General Staff announced Tuesday it was establishing of a 20-kilometer (12-mile) restricted access zone along Russian-Ukrainian border in the northeastern Sumy region which borders Kursk.
The measures were introduced due to the increasing intensity of combat in the area and the rising presence of Russian reconnaissance and sabotage units in the area, a statement said.
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Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia contributed.
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