Putin orders army to ‘dislodge’ Ukraine as over 120,000 flee border
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President Vladimir Putin holds a televised meeting on a massive Ukrainian incursion into Russian territories.
PHOTO: AFP
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MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his army on Aug 12 to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory, as the authorities said over 120,000 people have been evacuated away from the fighting.
Kyiv launched a surprise offensive
“One of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord, strife, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society,” Mr Putin told a televised meeting with government officials.
“The main task is, of course, for the defence ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he said.
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 Mr Putin.
The authorities in Kursk announced on Aug 12 they were widening their evacuation area to include Belovsky district, home to some 14,000 residents. The neighbouring Belgorod region also said it was evacuating its border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.
Ukraine has pierced into the region by at least 12km and has captured 28 towns and villages, with the new front 40km long, Mr Smirnov said.
A top Ukrainian official told Agence France-Presse over the weekend that the operation was aimed at stretching Russian troops and destabilising the country after months of slow Russian advances across the frontline.
Mr Putin said Russia would respond by showing “unanimous support for all those in distress” and claimed there has been an increase in men signing up to fight.
“The enemy will receive a worthy riposte,” he said.
Ukrainian soldiers assemble a drone in the Sumy region, near the border with Russia, on Aug 11.
PHOTO: AFP
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 Aug 11 that Ukraine has penetrated up to 30km into Russian territory in places.
It said some forces were near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez, around 25km and 30km from the Russia-Ukraine border.
A Ukrainian security official said, on condition of anonymity, 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”.
He said thousands of Ukrainian troops were involved in the operation.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Aug 12 its air defence systems have destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones, including 11 over the Kursk region.
Burnt-out remains of cars can be seen at a residential building in the Kursk region hit by debris from a destroyed Ukrainian missile.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Russia’s emergency situations ministry said on Aug 11 that over 44,000 residents in the Kursk region have applied for financial assistance, Tass news agency reported.
Russia’s rail operator has, meanwhile, organised emergency trains from Kursk to Moscow, around 450km away, for those fleeing.
“It’s scary to have helicopters flying over your head all the time,” said Marina, refusing to give her surname, who arrived by train in Moscow on Aug 11. “When it was possible to leave, I left.”
Across the border in Ukraine’s Sumy region, journalists on Aug 11 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 10km from the Russian border, welcomed Ukraine’s push into Russia.
“Let’s let them find out what it’s like,” he said. “They don’t understand what war is. Let them have a taste of it.”
Analysts think Kyiv may have launched the assault to relieve pressure on its troops in other parts of the frontline.
But the Ukrainian official said: “Their pressure in the east continues. They are not pulling back troops from the area”, even if “the intensity of Russian attacks has gone down a little bit”.
The Ukrainian official said he expected Russia would “in the end” stop the incursion.
Ukraine was braced for a large-scale retaliatory missile attack, including “on decision-making centres” in Ukraine, the official said. AFP
