KYIV — 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region is an attempt to divert attention from Moscow’s offensive in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and eventually gain a better negotiating position to end the war.

Putin said that Kyiv, in attacking the Kursk region in southwest Russia, may have sought to destabilize Russian life, but had failed. He said the number of volunteers to join the Russian military has increased and vowed that Russia would achieve its military goals.

“The losses of the Ukrainian armed forces are increasing dramatically for them, including among the most combat-ready units, units that the enemy is transferring to our border,” Putin told a televised meeting with top security officials and regional governors.

“The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response, and all the goals facing us will, without a doubt, be achieved,” Putin said.

In his first comment on the shock cross-border incursion, Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Monday that Kyiv controls about 1,000 square kilometers (396 square miles) of the Kursk region. “We continue to conduct offensive operations in the Kursk region,” he said.

Much of Russia has been largely removed from direct consequences of Moscow’s 2½-year invasion of Ukraine, but Monday Russian officials urged more Kursk region residents to evacuate due to the “very tense situation” in the area. Russian forces are still scrambling to respond to the surprise Ukrainian attack after almost a week of intense fighting.

Russia’s emergency authorities say more than 100,000 people have fled their homes after Ukrainian troops and armor poured across the border on August 6, reportedly driving as deep as 30 kilometers (19 miles) into Russia. It marked the largest attack on Russian soil since World War II.

The governor of the Belgorod region adjacent to Kursk also announced the evacuation of people from a district near the Ukrainian border, describing Monday morning as “alarming” but giving no detail.

Ukrainian forces swiftly rolled into the town of Sudzha about 10 kilometers (6 miles) over the border after launching the attack. They reportedly still hold the western part of the town, which is the site of an important natural gas transit station.

The Ukrainian operation is taking place under tight secrecy, and its goals — especially whether Kyiv’s forces aim to hold territory or are staging hit-and-run raids — remain unclear. The Kyiv government, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said little about the attack.

The Kyiv government, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said little directly about the attack, but on Monday he confirmed for the first time that Ukrainian military forces are operating inside Russia.

On Telegram, Zelenskyy praised the country’s soldiers and commanders “for their steadfastness and decisive actions,” but did not elaborate further on the military incursion.

He suggested that Ukraine would offer humanitarian assistance in the region, saying that government officials were instructed to prepare an aid plan for Russians living there.

The assault that caught the Kremlin’s forces by surprise came as Russia continues its attempt to gain ground in eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian incursion delivered a blow to Putin’s efforts to pretend that life in Russia has largely remained unaffected by the war. State propaganda has tried to play down the attack, emphasizing the authorities’ efforts to help residents of the region and seeking to distract attention from the military’s failure to prepare for the attack and quickly repel it.

Kursk residents recorded videos lamenting they had to flee the border area, leaving behind their belongings, and pleading with Putin for help. But Russia’s state-controlled media kept a tight lid on any expression of discontent.

Nonetheless, retired Gen. Andrei Gurulev, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, criticized the military for failing to properly protect the border.

He noted that while the military has set up minefields in the border region, it had failed to deploy enough troops to block enemy raids.

“Regrettably, the group of forces protecting the border didn’t have its own intelligence assets,” he said on his messaging app channel. “No one likes to see the truth in reports, everybody just wants to hear that all is good.”

Pasi Paroinen, an analyst with the Finland-based Black Bird Group open-source intelligence agency, which monitors the war, said the toughest phase of Ukraine’s incursion is likely to begin now as Russian reserves enter the fray.

He said that “if the Ukrainians are going to advance any further from where they are now, it’s going to be a tough battle, unlike the opening moments of this offensive.”

Ukraine’s progress on Russian territory “is challenging the operational and strategic assumptions” of the Kremlin’s forces, according to an assessment late Sunday by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

It described the Russian forces responding to the incursion as “hastily assembled and disparate.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.

Source: voanews.com