Ukraine troops seize largest Russian town yet as Zelensky hints at more attacks- live

Mykhailo Podolyak, the top aide to the Ukrainian president, said the incursion had shown Russians the harsh realities of Vladimir Putin’s war.

“We need to use absolutely clear tools to coerce Russia [into negotiation]. One of them is a military instrument of coercion.

Former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace has hailed the use of British Challenge 2 tanks at the “forefront of enabling Ukraine to defend itself from [Mr Putin’s] illegal invasion”.

He was optimistic about the impact the tanks will have, saying: “If the weapons we supply make a difference in protecting their self-defence, Britain should be satisfied that they are being used.”

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said Russia and Ukraine should negotiate an end to their conflict to avoid the war spilling over into Belarus.

In his propagandistic claim as repeated by his ally Vladimir Putin, Mr Lukashenko said that the West was encouraging Kyiv to fight because it wants Ukraine and Russia to “destroy each other”.

“Let’s sit down at the negotiating table and end this brawl,” he said. “Neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need it. They (the West) need it.”

Belarus was used as a launching ground in the Russian invasion in February 2022. Moscow has said any peace talks should be based on Ukraine ceding land amounting to a fifth of its territory – much of it seized by Russian forces. Ukraine says Kyiv would be prepared for talks provided Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity were fully respected.

Mr Lukashenko charged that the West was betting that the destabilising situation in Kursk would encourage a troop mobilisation in both Belarus and Russia and “shake up society from within.”

“We don’t want escalation and we don’t want a war against the whole of Nato. We don’t want that,” he said.

But if Ukraine does provoke Belarus, Lukashenko cautioned, “we’ll have no other choice.” The Belarusian leader has positioned himself as a main backer of Putin since the Russian president ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, part of which was staged from Belarusian soil.

Mr Lukashenko referred to the conflict as a “common war” of Belarus and Russia against “those beasts” – Kyiv and its Western allies – and said Moscow would “back us up” if Belarus was attacked.

His comments come as the Ukrainian incursion into Russia expanded further this week. It began last week on Tuesday when thousands of Kyiv’s troops smashed through Russia’s western border in a major embarrassment for Putin’s top military brass.

Pictures have been issued by the Russian Emergencies Ministry of people evacuated from the Belgorod region after a federal level emergency was declared.

The region, next to Kursk, has already come under attack this year from Ukraine, and now, according to Russian state news agency TASS, 11,000 have been evacuated this week.

Russian guided bomb attacks killed at least two people and injured 12 others in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, local authorities said.

The strike hit a civilian enterprise in Kupiansk district, the regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.

A warehouse caught fire as a result of the strike, the regional prosecutors said on Telegram, adding that six employees were injured.

Six more people, including a 12-year-old child, were wounded in the Zolochiv village when Russian forces dropped two bombs, the regional police said on Telegram.

Administrative buildings, a kindergarten, and over 20 private homes were damaged in this attack, the police added.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, and the surrounding region have long been targeted by Russian attacks, and Moscow troops have for months been pummelling Ukraine‘s border regions with highly destructive guided bombs.

Ukrainian special forces captured a group of more than 100 Russian soldiers during Kyiv’s cross-border incursion into the western Russian region of Kursk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) Vasyl Maliuk said yesterday.

“We conducted a sophisticated operation, as a result of which 102 Russians were captured. We are already thinking in perspective how to make the most of this – to bring our defenders home,” he said on Telegram referring to a possible prisoner swap.

The 102 servicemen of Russia’s 488th Guards Motorized Rifle Regiment and its “Akhmat” unit are the largest group of soldiers to be captured at the same time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, a source in the SBU said.

“They captured and cleared a sprawling, concrete and well-fortified company stronghold from all sides – with underground communications and personnel accommodation, a canteen, an armoury and even a bathhouse,” the source said.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that his country’s troops had taken full control of Sudzha, the largest Russian town to fall to Ukraine‘s forces since the start of their cross-border incursion more than a week ago. Although it had a prewar population of only around 5,000 people, Sudzha is the administrative centre for the border area of Russia’s Kursk region and is larger than any of the other towns or settlements that Ukraine says its forces have taken since the incursion began on 6 August. Zelensky said Ukraine‘s military was setting up a command office in Sudzha, which suggests that Ukraine might plan to remain in the Kursk region long-term — or just signal Moscow that it may intend to do so.

He didn’t elaborate on what functions the office might handle, though he said earlier that Ukraine would be distributing humanitarian aid to Sudzha residents.

The surprise Ukrainian incursion has reframed the war and caused chaos in the Kursk region, leading to the evacuation of more than 120,000 civilians, according to Russian authorities, and the capture of at least 100 Russian troops, according to Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelensky has said one of the reasons for the incursion was to protect neighboring Ukrainian regions. “The more Russian military presence is destroyed in the border regions, the closer peace and real security will be for our state. The Russian state must be responsible for what it has done,” he said Tuesday. Russia has seen previous raids of its territory in the war, but the Kursk incursion is notable for its size, speed, the reported involvement of battle-hardened Ukrainian brigades, and the length of time they have stayed inside Russia. As many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops are involved, according to Western military analysts. The incursion also marks the first time foreign troops have invaded and held Russian territory since Nazi Germany did in the Second World War

Military commentators have been analysing the impact of Ukraine’s surprise incursion on the Kursk region on the ongoing war.

Among them is Polish military expert Konrad Muzyka, who said apart from a reputational blow to President Vladimir Putin, the biggest invasion of Russia since World War Two had destroyed Russian forces, captured soldiers who can be traded and created a sore on Russia’s flank.

However, he also warned that trying to hold a swathe of Russian land could open up Ukrainian forces to potentially heavy losses, pointing to manpower problems that have dogged Ukraine for months in its war with a much larger foe.

The counter-invasion was “a massive gamble” that in the short term was paying off, Muzyka said.

“But there may soon come a time when costs associated with the attack in the Kursk region will outweigh the benefits, especially given the steady pace of Russian advances in the Donetsk region,” he said.

As Ukraine’s forces continue the incursion into Russian territory, many are speculating how far they will be able, or want, to go.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s top commander Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said Kyiv had set up a military commandant’s office in the occupied part of Russia’s Kursk region where he said his forces were still advancing.

It is the strongest sign yet that Kyiv’s forces plan to dig in after launching a lightning cross-border assault.

Serhiy Zgurets, a Kyiv-based military analyst, predicted Ukraine would seek to retain control of the land between the towns of Rylsk, Korenevoye and Sudzha and the border, giving it control of a roughly 20-km-wide strip of Russian territory.

The area, he said, could be defended by a small force using long-range artillery systems and air defences.

“This line is not difficult to defend, given there are few roads and a large number of rivers,” Zgurets said, adding that the area could be easily supplied from the Ukrainian region of Sumy across the border.

He said he didn’t expect troops to press towards the Russian regional capital of Kursk, something that could expose them to attacks from the flanks.