Ukrainian soldiers filmed themselves raising the flag of their country, blue and yellow, in the Russian village of Guevo, near the border, during the incursion into the Kursk region. Reuters was able to confirm the video’s location from the buildings, trees, the layout of the path, and the signage that correspond to satellite images and files of the area, but the date could not be verified.
The admission of the governor of Kursk: “Ukrainian forces penetrate 12 km deep, front line is 40 km wide”
The interim governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, a week after the Russian Defense Ministry stated in notes and press releases that it had “prevented the enemy from entering Russian territory,” today claimed that Ukrainian forces have advanced 12 kilometers deep and that the front line is 40 kilometers wide, Smirnov acknowledged. “There are 28 localities under enemy control” where about 2,000 people live whose fate is unknown, he said.
The situation on the territory, according to the Russians
Smirnov explained that the main difficulty in the fighting is that “there is no clear front line; it is unclear where the enemy units are.” Previously, Russian military bloggers had reported that mobile Ukrainian sabotage groups are operating in this region, difficult to track and able to create chaos within the Russian ranks, and the National Antiterrorism Committee has declared a counter-terrorism operation. In fact, after seven days, more than 121,000 people have been evacuated, and another 60,000 are waiting to be transferred to the region, where Smirnov says 12 civilians have been killed and 121 wounded.
Meanwhile, today the Ministry of Defense reported in a military statement that it had repelled seven Ukrainian attacks in the areas around the city of Sudzha, one of the likely Ukrainian targets because it is the site of the gasometer from which gas is pumped to EU countries through Ukraine. In the neighboring regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, the latter being the most affected during the war, Ukrainian advances in Kursk are viewed with concern. The governor of Bryansk, Alexandr Bogomaz, told Putin that the situation is “stable” despite ongoing Ukrainian shelling of civilians, while Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, lamented a “significant deterioration of the situation” with further attacks from Ukrainian artillery, mortars, missiles, and drones.