KYIV: Ukrainian forces are now fully in control of the Russian town of Sudzha, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, more than a week into Kyiv's incursion into Russian territory. Zelensky said on social media after meeting military commanders that the army had "reported on the completion of the liberation of the town of Sudzha from the Russian military".
President Zelensky had said that Ukrainian troops had "advanced well" in Russia's Kursk region, as Kyiv's biggest cross-border attack stretched into a second week. The Ukrainian army entered the Kursk region on August 6, capturing dozens of settlements in the biggest offensive by a foreign army on Russian soil since World War II.
"Today we have advanced well in the Kursk region. We are achieving our strategic goal," Zelensky said in his evening address.
He had also spoken of gains of "one to two kilometres in different areas since the beginning of the day" in a social media post earlier on Wednesday.
Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said Ukraine would create a "buffer zone" in the region to prevent Russian cross-border strikes.
"The creation of a buffer zone in the Kursk region is a step to protect our border communities from daily hostile shelling," he said.
The neighbouring Russian region of Belgorod, where 11,000 people have been evacuated, declared its own state of emergency, as the governor warned the situation was "extremely difficult" due to Ukrainian shelling and drone attacks.
An analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) indicated Ukrainian troops had advanced over an area of at least 800 square kilometres of Russia as of Monday.
Russia said it had repelled Ukrainian attempts to push further into five areas of Kursk.
"The attempts by enemy mobile units using armoured equipment to break through deeper into Russian territory have been repelled," its defence ministry said. Since launching its invasion in February 2022, Russia has captured territory in southern and eastern Ukraine and subjected Ukrainian cities to missile and drone barrages.
After re-capturing some lost territory in 2022, a long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive last year largely petered out.
Ukraine said it would not hold on to Russian land it captured and offered to stop raids if Moscow agreed to a "just peace".
"The sooner Russia agrees to restore a just peace... the sooner the raids by the Ukrainian defence forces into Russia will stop," foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said. More than 120,000 Russians have fled their homes in Kursk's border areas, with the region's governor announcing late Wednesday that another district had been evacuated. - AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
