Ukraine pounded Russian regions with missiles and drones on Wednesday as Kyiv said it was advancing deeper in the biggest foreign incursion into Russia for decades, which the White House said posed a “real dilemma” for President Vladimir Putin.
Thousands of Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug. 6 into Russia’s Western Kursk region in what Putin said was a major provocation that was aimed at gaining a stronger hand in possible future ceasefire talks.
In an embarrassment for Russia, Ukraine carved out a slice of Kursk and though Putin said the Russian army would push out the Ukrainian troops, intense battles have so far failed to expel them.
Russia said on Wednesday that it had destroyed 117 Ukrainian drones in Russia overnight, mostly in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions. It said missiles had also been shot down and showed Sukhoi Su-34 bombers pounding Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
Russian commanders had said that the front in Kursk had stabilized, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces were continuing to advance there and ordered his generals to develop the next “key steps” in the operation.
U.S. President Joe Biden said that U.S. officials were in constant touch with Ukraine over the invasion of Russia, which he said had “created a real dilemma” for Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022.
The White House said Ukraine did not provide advance notice of its incursion and the United States had no involvement in the operation, though Russian officials have suggested Ukraine’s Western backers must have known of the attack.
A U.S. official said the goal of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion appeared to be to force Russia to pull troops out of Ukraine to defend Russian territory against the cross-border assault.
The Ukrainian attack on Russia, the biggest by a foreign force since the Second World War, has dramatically changed the narrative around the war. Russia had been advancing since the failure of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive to make any major gains against Moscow’s forces.
Russia on defensive
Putin said on Monday that Ukraine “with the help of its Western masters” was aiming to improve Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks and to slow the advance of Russian forces.
A video circulated by Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Belgorod in Russia, shows people being evacuated from border areas with Ukraine.
But in a sign the attack is hardening the Kremlin’s position, Putin questioned what negotiations there could be with an enemy he accused of firing indiscriminately at Russian civilians and nuclear facilities.
Russian officials say Ukraine is trying to show its Western backers that it can still muster major military operations just as pressure mounts on both Kyiv and Moscow to agree to talk about halting the war.
By bringing the war to Russia, Ukraine has forced nearly 200,000 Russians to evacuate border regions.
Russian governor declares state of emergency
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s border region of Belgorod, declared a regionwide state of emergency on Wednesday, citing continued attacks by Ukrainian forces.
“The situation in the Belgorod region continues to be extremely difficult and tense,” Gladkov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
Daily shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces had destroyed houses, killing and wounding civilians, he added.
The offensive brings risks for Kyiv: Ukraine may leave other parts of the front exposed by dedicating forces to fighting in Russian sovereign territory. Russia controls 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory and has been advancing in recent months.
Ukraine has claimed it controls at least 1,000 square kilometres of Russia, more than double what Moscow’s figures indicate. Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield situation.
A Russian military blogger close to the defence ministry who goes by the name “Rybar” said on the Telegram messaging app that Ukrainian forces were attacking in several areas at once. Russian troops were “pinning down” Kyiv soldiers, striking their armory, while reinforcements were arriving.