KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia declared a “federal-level” emergency in the Kursk region following a large-scale incursion from Ukraine and sent reinforcements there on Friday, four days after hundreds of Ukrainian troops poured across the border in what appeared to be Kyiv’s biggest attack on Russian soil since the war began.
Meanwhile, a Russian plane-launched missile slammed into a Ukrainian shopping mall in the middle of the day, killing at least 12 people and wounding 44 others, authorities said.
The mall in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is located in the town’s residential area. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.
It was the second major strike on the town in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile hit an outdoor market there, killing 17.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that reinforcements were on their way to the Kursk region to counter Ukraine’s daring raid. Russia is deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks transported on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles, the RIA-Novosti new agency said, citing the Defense Ministry.
“The operational situation in the Kursk region remains difficult,” Kursk acting governor Alexei Smirnov said on Telegram.
The Russian Defense ministry reported fighting in the western outskirts of Sudzha, about 6 miles from the border. The town has an important pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas.
Social services and civic associations are providing assistance to people forced to flee their homes by the fighting, he said. The last Russian figure for evacuations in Kursk was 3,000.
Little reliable information about the surprise Ukrainian operation has emerged, and its strategic aims are unclear. Ukrainian officials have refused to comment specifically about the incursion, which is taking place about 320 miles southwest of Moscow.
But a top adviser to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that border region attacks will cause Russia to “start to realize that the war is slowly creeping inside of Russian territory.” Myhailo Podolyak also suggested that the operation would improve Kyiv’s hand in the event of negotiations with Moscow.
Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the Ukrainians appear to have a clear goal in mind, even if they’re not saying what it is.
“Such a coordinated ground force movement responds to a clear military objective, yet unknown, that requires extreme operational security,” Boulegue told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
At the same time, the raid spooks the Russian public and delivers a slap in the face to Russian President Vladimir Putin, offering Ukraine “a great PR coup,” he said.
The attack “is a massive symbol, a massive display of force (showing) that the war is not frozen, the war is coming to you,” he said.
