MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin ordered his army on Monday (Aug 12) to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory as authorities said over 120,000 people had been evacuated away from the fighting.
Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.
Ukraine’s military chief Oleksandr Syrsky told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a video posted Monday that his troops now control about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory and are continuing “offensive operations”.
Putin told a televised meeting with government officials that “one of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord” and “destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society”.
“The main task is, of course, for the defence ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he said.
Zelenskyy told the nation in his evening address that the cross-border offensive was “purely a security issue”, capturing “areas from which the Russia army struck at our Sumy region”.
Some 121,000 people have fled the Kursk region since the start of the fighting, which has killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121 more, regional governor Alexei Smirnov told the meeting with Putin.
