Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged for the first time that his army is conducting an offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region.
In his televised address on Saturday night, Mr Zelensky said the Ukrainian military was pushing the war “into the territory of the aggressor”.
It comes five days after the start of the Ukrainian operation, which took Russia by surprise and prompted mass evacuations on both sides of the border.
In Ukraine, explosions were reported in the capital kyiv and the Sumy region in the early hours of Sunday.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defense units were “operational” and air raid warnings continued in the city. On the Telegram messaging app, he advised civilians to stay in shelters.
kyiv, its surrounding region and all of eastern Ukraine are on air alert, the country’s air force said.
In his speech on Saturday, President Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s “warriors” and said he had discussed the operation in Russia with the country’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrsky.
“Ukraine proves that it can effectively restore justice and provide the necessary pressure on the aggressor,” he added.
Ukrainian troops are reportedly threatening to seize a regional town as they fight more than 10km inside Russia – the deepest advance since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
At least 13 people were injured, two of them seriously, in Kursk in the early hours of Sunday, the region’s acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, said.
More than 76,000 people have already been evacuated from the border area, according to Russia’s official Tass news agency, and Smirnov said on Sunday he had ordered authorities to speed up the operation to get civilians to safety.
National Counterterrorism Committee of Russia imposed an “anti-terrorist operation” regime in three regions on Friday in response to Ukraine’s surprise cross-border incursion.
This means that authorities in the border regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk can restrict the movement of people and vehicles and resort to wiretapping, among other measures.
Russia said up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops, backed by tanks and armored vehicles, entered the Kursk region on Tuesday morning.
The Ukrainians have since reportedly taken control of a number of villages and are also threatening the regional town of Sudja.
On Friday, a video emerged showing armed Ukrainian soldiers claiming to be in control of the city, as well as a major Russian gas facility owned by the Gazprom company.
BBC Verify has confirmed that the footage came from the Gazprom plant in the northwestern suburb of Sudja, about 7km from the border with Ukraine. The video alone does not verify the claim that Ukrainian troops have taken control of the entire town.
Russian military bloggers had previously claimed that the city was in Moscow’s hands.
BBC Verify has verified and confirmed the location of another video posted online on Friday morning. It shows a Russian convoy of 15 vehicles damaged, burned and abandoned on a road through the town of Oktyabrskoe, about 24 miles from the border on the Russian side.
The footage also shows Russian soldiers – some wounded, others possibly dead – among the vehicles.
Moscow has since sent reinforcements – including tanks and rocket launchers – to the Kursk region.
In its latest report released Saturday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry said its troops “continued to repel the attempted invasion” by Ukrainian forces.
She said Ukraine’s attempts to “penetrate deep into Russian territory” had been thwarted.
The Russian claims have not been independently verified.
The U.N. nuclear agency on Friday urged Russia and Ukraine to “exercise maximum restraint” as fighting moved closer to the Kursk nuclear power plant, one of Russia’s largest such facilities.
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, said measures must be taken “to avoid a nuclear accident with the potential for serious radiological consequences.”
The power plant is located about 60 km northeast of Sudzha.
