Russians evacuated from Kursk as Putin grapples with Ukrainian incursion

Nearly a week into a stunning Ukrainian incursion into western Russia, the acting governor of the Kursk region told President Vladimir Putin and other security officials Monday that the situation is “complicated,” with Kyiv’s forces having advanced 7½ miles into the country and controlling more than two dozen villages.

“As of today, the enemy is in control of 28 communities, having advanced 12 kilometers into the Kursk region on a 40-kilometer-wide front,” Alexei Smirnov told the officials via video conference. “For us, the problem is that there is no clear front line, no understanding of where the (Ukrainian) combat units are. It is very important to know where the enemy is and at what time.”

Putin, in the operational meeting broadcast on the Kremlin’s website, demanded that the military eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk and insisted that Russia would prevail.

“The main goal facing the Defense Ministry is definitely to oust and knock the enemy out of our territories and along with the Border Service reliably guarantee border security,” Putin said. “The enemy will certainly get an appropriate response, and all the goals facing us will undoubtedly be achieved.”

Also Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time fully acknowledged Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, claiming in a meeting with senior officials that Ukraine controls about 386 square miles and thanking soldiers and commanders for “their decisive actions.”

In his security meeting, Putin ordered the Federal Security Service and Russia’s national guard to enforce counterterrorism in the region, including countering Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance teams.

But even as Putin spoke, Russian officials were evacuating civilians from a second region, Belgorod, that has been impacted by Ukrainian cross-border attacks, and Russian military bloggers reported fierce fighting to prevent Ukrainian advances.

The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced that residents were being evacuated from the Krasnaya Yaruga district near Ukraine because of “enemy activity on the border.”

Smirnov’s remarks, in particular, highlighted how Ukraine has unexpectedly turned the tables on Russia, which occupies nearly one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory. Ukrainian and Russian officials alike have noted that the operation marks the first military invasion of Russia since World War II.

As Smirnov spelled out the scale of Ukraine’s incursion, Putin interrupted and ordered Smirnov to confine himself to reporting on the economic and humanitarian situation in the region.

On Monday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., visited Ukraine, where they expressed support for the incursion. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top Ukrainian officials including Zelenskyy, Graham, who has been an important Republican ally for Ukraine, described the Kursk operation as “bold, brilliant, beautiful.”

Both senators, on their sixth trip to Ukraine since 2022, said it was the most hopeful they had seen Ukraine since they began visiting the country.

“The breakthrough in Kursk on that front is historic. It is a seismic breakthrough,” Blumenthal said.

The senators insisted that, especially amid such momentum, the United States must loosen restrictions that prevent Kyiv from using U.S.-provided weapons for long-range attacks inside Russia. Washington has long limited use of its equipment for such attacks, asking instead that the weapons be used to strike Russian-controlled territory inside Ukraine.

“We can’t let Ukraine fight with one arm behind its back, giving them weapons but then telling them they can’t use them in the way that’s necessary to win,” Blumenthal said.

In the highly choreographed security meeting Monday, Putin sidestepped the symbolic significance of Ukraine’s surprise attack – which has galvanized the Ukrainian public and delivered a morale boost to Kyiv’s depleted and exhausted soldiers. Instead, Putin, who read an address to security officials from a notepad covered in large black handwriting, asserted that the goal of the incursion was to prevent Russian advances in eastern Ukraine and insisted that this had failed.

“Our armed forces are moving forward along the entire line of contact,” Putin said.

Spin aside, the incursion has posed a major new test for Putin’s leadership, once more exposing Russian military weakness in regions that were supposed to be under tight control. The Ukrainian advance also sent shock waves through Russia’s elite and left tens of thousands of residents of border regions feeling furious and abandoned.

The head of the Kursk region’s Belovo district, Nikolai Volobuyev, described the situation as “very tense” and called on residents of the district to leave.

“I am sure that our servicemen will do everything to cope with the threat that has arisen,” Belgorod’s Gladkov said Monday on Telegram.

Russia announced a state of emergency in several southern border regions and has rushed reinforcements to the area and mounted air attacks. Military officials claimed without clear evidence Sunday to have halted the advance and inflicted massive casualties on the Ukrainian units holding towns and villages inside Russia.

Smirnov said 121,000 people had been evacuated from the Kursk region to date.

As local officials organized evacuations and admitted their lack of clarity even on the whereabouts of Ukrainian forces, pro-Kremlin media outlets portrayed a one-sided battle dominated by Russia. They quoted military officials who claimed without providing evidence that Russian strikes had killed more than 1,350 Ukrainian soldiers and destroyed 29 tanks since Tuesday, when the Ukrainians first advanced into Russian territory.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Monday claimed to have killed 260 Ukrainian troops in the past 24 hours, adding that Russia had repelled seven attacks on towns and villages in Kursk during that period. It also claimed that its forces had advanced in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions of Ukraine.

Earlier Monday, Putin boasted of the “unique achievements of the Russian defense industry,” but did not mention the Kursk attack, in a video address to participants in Russia’s annual military show, Army-2024, designed to showcase Russia’s military might and drum up foreign weapons sales.

But Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region has stunned and embarrassed Russia’s military, once more exposing its slow and lumbering approach against a nimble opponent.

Russia’s deployment of reinforcements followed reports that Ukraine had probably pulled thousands of soldiers off the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have been gaining ground.

But questions remain about Kyiv’s goals and how long it intends to hold territory in the Kursk region, given the supply-line and logistical challenges it may face.

One of Russia’s strongest advantages is its superior force strength, with far higher numbers of soldiers and weapons. Putin has also shown a willingness to accept massive casualties in the war while quashing any domestic pushback. Criticism of the military or the war is now a felony in Russia, carrying a potentially stiff prison sentence.

In June, Britain’s Defense Ministry reported that the number of Russian troops killed or wounded in Ukraine had reached half a million. In recent months, it has estimated that Russian casualties are numbering about 1,100 a day.

There remains little clarity on the number of Ukrainian forces deployed to the Kursk region, or the front-line positions of Ukrainian and Russian forces, with Ukrainian units reported to be occupying the town of Sudzha and attacking the town of Korenevo.

Pro-Russian military blogger Yuri Podolyaka described the situation in Kursk as “alarming,” reporting that Ukraine had three relatively large military groups in the region. Podolyaka reported that Ukrainian military personnel had managed to take Gordeyevka village and were attacking Martynovka village.

The extent to which the Ukrainian attack succeeded in drawing Russian forces away from battlefields in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Kharkiv regions is also unclear.

Ukrainian military officials have declined to comment on the surprise operation, and government officials have been similarly tight-lipped.

On Sunday, Zelenskyy continued to call on Western military donors to lift restrictions on Kyiv’s use of donated weapons to carry out long-range strikes in Russia.

“Terror must always be defeated – this is a fundamental principle of protecting life,” Zelenskyy said. “We will continue to discuss with our partners how air defense protects lives, and how lifting restrictions on long-range strikes will save thousands of lives.”

The incursion clearly has achieved at least one Ukrainian objective: breaking through the haze of Russian complacency about the war – which has had limited impact on the lives of most ordinary Russians.

Pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov said the attack had triggered intense criticism of Russia’s military command, speculating it could lead to changes in leadership and steps to bring it more tightly under Kremlin control.

He said the attack had also driven home to ordinary Russians that they could no longer just sit back and keep their heads down, ignoring the war and hoping for it to end.

“In Russia they realized that apparently no one would be able to sit it out, and the demand for the principle ‘Everything for the front, everything for victory’ has increased,” Markov wrote in a post on Telegram.

How the Kremlin could assert more control, however, is difficult to see. Already, Putin has placed overall operational authority for the war in the hands of the chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, after sidelining lower-ranking operational commanders.

Pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets on Monday quoted Apti Alaudinov, head of the Chechen Akhmat special forces, which are charged with defending the border region, as claiming Ukraine’s advance had been halted.

“I hope Zelenskyy and the Kyiv leadership realized that their blitzkrieg has failed,” Alaudinov told the newspaper. “We have never destroyed so many enemies in one day in the entire special military operation,” he said, referring to the war. His comments, however, could not be verified.

Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, addressing the Army-2024 show on Monday, described the conflict as an “armed standoff between Russia and the collective West,” which he said was “caused by the aspirations of the United States and its allies to maintain their dominance and to prevent the emergence of a new equal multipolar world order.”

Russian newspaper Kommersant last week reported on the sense of abandonment and outrage that Kursk residents experienced after the initial attack. Some bemoaned the absence of the Russian state, with phone lines in local administrations going unanswered and no help or advice on evacuations. Others expressed fury over official “lies” that the situation was under control, as locals were left to cope on their own.

“You just don’t need to lie to people anymore,” one woman who had fled the region told the newspaper. “We can handle it ourselves – just don’t lie to us.”