KYIV, Ukraine — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited northeastern Ukraine’s Sumy region on Thursday in his first visit to the border region since his forces launched a surprise cross-border offensive more than two weeks ago, seizing dozens of Russian villages and the town of Sudhza.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces claimed control of another settlement in Russia’s Kursk region and took more Russian prisoners of war that they hoped would be exchanged for captured Ukrainians, adding what he called “exchange funds.”
“Other settlements in the Kursk region are now under the control of Ukraine, and we have filled the exchange fund,” Zelenskyy wrote on the X social media platform after hearing a report from the military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi.
When he traveled to areas close to Ukraine’s offensive against Russia, he did not enter Russia itself – a move that Moscow would consider a provocation. He previously said that Ukraine has no plans to control the region in the long term but wants to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from the region into Ukraine.
After a meeting with local military authorities, Zelenskyy said the Kursk operation launched on August 6 has led to a reduction in Russian shelling and a reduction in civilian casualties in the Sumy region of northern Ukraine.
Ukrainians daring to enter the Kursk region have shocked the Kremlin, showing Russia’s vulnerability and undermining President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to pretend the country is unaffected by the 2 1/2-year war.
Authorities in Kursk have begun building concrete shelters at bus stops and other locations in the city to protect them from attacks and are planning similar work in Zheleznogorsk and Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, said Governor Alexei Smirnov of the region. his Telegram channel.
Putin said in a video call with officials that he had ordered the creation of self-defense units in Russian regions bordering Ukraine.
Smirnov reported to Putin that more than 133,000 people had left the war-affected areas of the Kursk region, while more than 19,000 had remained.
The governor of Bryansk, another Russian region bordering Ukraine, said authorities in the region had conducted exercises for emergency evacuation from the border area if necessary.
Separately, the Ministry of Defense reported repelling Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka and several other settlements in the Kursk region.
Ukraine’s capture of Russian territory comes as Ukraine continues to lose ground in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that the military had claimed control of the village of Mezhov in Donetsk, part of the industrialized Donbas region that Moscow aims to take over entirely.
Ukraine’s push into Russia marks the first capture of Russian territory since World War II.
It comes as both sides in the war use drones to attack far behind enemy lines.
Ukraine attacked Russia overnight with 28 drones, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Thirteen were shot in Volgograd region, seven in Rostov region, four in Belgorod region, two in Voronezh region, and one each in Bryansk and Kursk regions, the ministry said.
Andrei Bocharov, the governor of the Volgograd region, said on Thursday that a military facility was on fire after a drone attack in the Marinovka region where a Russian military airbase is located. He did not specify what was broken.
A video shared on Russian social media showed an explosion in the night sky, reportedly near the base. Marinovka is about 300 kilometers (185 miles) east of the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Security Service of Ukraine and the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine carried out a drone strike Wednesday night, hitting the Marinovka airfield, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
The Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russian law enforcement, said one drone was shot down a few kilometers (miles) from an airfield near Marinovka and debris from another fell on a trailer near the airbase, causing a fire.
Data from NASA’s fire satellite, which monitors the Earth for forest fires, showed fires around the apron of the air base, where fighter jets were previously seen parked.
Another fire broke out Thursday in Russia’s Rostov region, where firefighters battled for a fifth day to put out a fire at an oil depot in the city of Proletarsk. State news agency Tass said 47 firefighters had been injured while fighting the blaze.
Satellite photos from PBC’s Planet Labs analyzed Thursday by The Associated Press show the fire at the oil depot was still burning as of Wednesday. A storage tank at the facility appears to be on fire. A visible fire can be seen in the image, with a cloud of thick black smoke drifting west over the city of Proletarsk.
___
Associated Press writers Emma Burrows in London and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed.
