Ukraine updates: Putin vows to 'drive enemy' out of Kursk

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that war was "coming home" to Russia in his nightly address on Monday.

"Russia brought war to others, now it's coming home. Ukraine has always wanted only peace, and we will certainly ensure peace," he said.

Monday marked the first time Zelenskyy publicly acknowledged the Ukrainian offensive in Russia's Kursk region.

Zelenskyy said the incursion into Russia was a matter of security for Ukraine, with Ukrainian troops capturing areas where Russia had launched strikes from.

"Russia must be forced to make peace if [President Vladimir] Putin wants to fight so badly," he added.

Russian troops continue to pound Ukrainian positions along the front line in the Donbas region, even as Ukrainian forces have spearheaded a flash offensive into Russian territory across the border from the Kharkiv region. 

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces had taken control of the small settlement of Lysychne in Donetsk, according to Reuters news agency. The Russian claim could not be independently verified. 

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian general staff said Russian forces had once again attempted to break through Ukrainian positions.

It reported around a dozen Russian airstrikes near the city of Toretsk and battles around the city of Pokrovsk.

The United States said it is deeply concerned by reports that Iran is planning to deliver hundreds of ballistic missiles to Russia.

"We are prepared to deliver a swift and severe response if Iran were to move forward with the transfer of ballistic missiles, which would, in our view, represent a dramatic escalation in Iran's support for Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine," a State Department spokesman told reporters on Monday.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that dozens of Russian military personnel were in Iran being trained to use the Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system.

Ukraine's military said on Monday its forces now hold around 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of Russian territory.

"We continue to conduct offensive operations in the Kursk region," Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrsky said in a video published on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's social media accounts.

"As of now, about 1,000 square kilometers of the territory of the Russian Federation are under our control."

Zelenskyy himself has also confirmed for the first time that Ukrainian troops are operating in Russia's Kursk region.

"We are grateful to all soldiers and commanders for their resilience and decisive actions," Zelenskyy said in a post on social media, without elaborating on the operation. 

He added that government officials had been instructed to prepare a humanitarian plan for "the area of operation."

Russian President Vladimir Putin told a meeting of defense and security officials broadcast on state television Monday that Ukraine's recent incursions into the region of Kursk was an attempt to "destabilize the situation in the border zone."

Putin added that Ukraine would receive a "worthy response," and vowed to "dislodge" Ukrainian forces from Russian territory, insisting that Russian forces would prevail. 

Russian forces are still scrambling to fight back the surprise Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region after almost a week of fighting. More than 100,000 civilians have fled or been evacuated. 

Putin also characterized the Ukrainian operation as an attempt to create public unrest and instability within Russia.

He claimed that rather than marking a military defeat, Kyiv's offense had actually had the opposite effect by driving new recruitment into the Russian military.

Putin added that the fighting in Kursk was little more than Ukraine attempting to get leverage for future peace negotiations and that Russia's ongoing campaign in Ukraine's eastern region of Donbas was unaffected.

Acting Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov has said that Ukrainian forces have taken control of 28 settlements and advanced 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) into Russian territory. 

Ukraine first pushed into the border area on August 6 has since made gains that have surprised Moscow and the Russian military, assisted by Western powers dropping restrictions on using their military equipment inside Russian territory.

Smirnov said that "as of today 121,000 people have left and been evacuated," from the front lines, while 59,000 more need to leave.

The governor said that 12 Russian civilians have died as a result of the Ukrainian operation and that 121 have been wounded, including 10 children.

The governor of Belgorod, next to Kursk, has also ordered evacuations.

 

The German government appeared to be unaware of the details of Ukraine's recent incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, according to comments from a government spokesperson.

"There is contradictory and sometimes intentionally falsified information about the operation that was prepared apparently in great secrecy," Wolfgang Büchner said from Berlin.

"So far, it looks like a spatially limited deployment."

The government spokesperson said that the military situation was still in flux "so it would be not be clever now to comment publicly on this basis."

He also refused to comment on the reports that German weapons had been used in the recent operation inside of Russia.

The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine said law enforcement officers had detained one of the four deputy energy ministers following an investigation into corruption.

The minister, along with several others, was suspected of having organized a plan to smuggle out mining equipment from a state-owned company located in a combat zone in Donetsk.

The group had demanded a bribe of $500,000 (€458,000) to allow the removal of the equipment to go ahead, according to the prosecutors.

They were detained while allegedly receiving a tranche of $100,000.

The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall announced on Monday that it would be providing the Czech Republic with new tanks as part of a deal that will see Prague deliver equipment to Ukrainian forces.

The Czech army will receive 14 Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks and one armored recovery vehicle from the German company. In turn, it will send unspecified military equipment to Ukraine to support its defense against the Russian invasion.

Rheinmetall said the first tank would arrive in the Czech Republic at the end of 2024 with the rest coming in April 2025. The deal, which was signed by German and Czech representatives at the end of July, had a value in the low hundreds of millions of euros, the company said.

Rheinmetall was involved in a similar deal with the Czech Republic in October 2022.

Various former members of the Eastern Bloc that are now part of NATO have delivered old Soviet-era equipment to Ukraine as they require no extra training. In exchange, they have received some of the most cutting-edge military equipment available in Western Europe.

Russian authorities have ordered fresh evacuations in the region of Belgorod, bordering Ukraine.

The decision follows "activity" by Ukrainian forces in the area, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Gladkov said evacuations had begun from the Krasnaya Yaruga district due to "enemy activity on the border" that was a "threat."

"I am sure that our servicemen will do everything to cope with the threat that has arisen," he added. "We are starting to move people who live in the Krasnaya Yaruga district to safer places."

Ukrainian soldiers crossed into Russia's Kursk region last week, apparently catching Russian forces off guard. Moscow has responded by sending more troops and equipment and imposing strict security measures in the border regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk.

Russia and Ukraine were holding each other responsible for the fire that broke out at Europe's largest nuclear power plant on Sunday.

Moscow, whose forces are occupying the Zaporizhzhia plant, said that a drone attack had hit one of the cooling towers, Russian state news agency RIA reported without providing evidence.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Kyiv had intentionally targeted the site in an attempt to sow "nuclear terror." The incident comes days after Ukrainian forces led an incursion into Russia's Kursk region, with troops advancing towards one of its largest nuclear plants.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were to blame, without providing further details, nor evidence. Ukraine's Energoatom said Russian "negligence" or arson may have been responsible.

"Currently, the radiation indicators are normal. But as long as Russian terrorists retain control over the nuclear plant, the situation is not and cannot be normal," he said.

The fire broke out around 8 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) on Sunday. Russia's nuclear energy company Rosatom said it had been extinguished by midnight. 

Energoatom said a cooling plant and other equipment had been damaged, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported no impact on nuclear safety at the site.

Nevertheless, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi demanded "immediate access" to the site to assess the situation and condemned "these reckless attacks [which] endanger nuclear safety at the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident."

"They must stop now," he added.

rc,es,nm,ab/wmr (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)