KIEV, Aug 13 : Ukrainian military moved up to 30 km into Russia, marking the farthest and most important incursion since Moscow launched its operation against Ukraine in February 2022, media reports said. On Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said that its forces had “foiled attempts by enemy mobile groups with armoured vehicles to break through deep into Russian territory”, reported BBC News on Monday. In an apparent admission that Kyiv’s forces have now advanced deep into the Kursk border region, the Russian defence ministry reported engaging Ukrainian troops near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez – which are about 25 km and 30 km from the Russia-Ukraine border. As the Kursk operation reached its sixth day, footage circulating online and verified by the BBC also appeared to show a Russian strike near the village of Levshinka, around 25km from the border. Ukrainian Army has claimed to have taken many communities in the Kursk region. In Guevo, a village about 3 kilometres inside Russia, soldiers recorded themselves removing the Russian flag from an administrative facility. Video footage has also emerged of Ukrainian troops seizing administrative facilities in Sverdlikovo and Poroz, while fierce fighting has been reported in Sudzha, a village of roughly 5,000. Russia says 76,000 people have been evacuated from border areas in the Kursk region, where local officials have declared a state of emergency. Acting regional governor Aleksei Smirnov reported that 15 people were injured late Saturday when the wreckage of a downed Ukrainian missile fell on a multi-story building in Kursk, the regional seat. A Ukrainian MP, Oleksiy Goncharenko praised the operation, saying it “brings us much closer to peace than one hundred peace summits.” “When Russia needs to fight back on their territory, when Russian people are running, when people care, that’s the only way to show them stop this war,” he told the BBC. (UNI)
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