KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his first visit Thursday to the border area where his forces launched their surprise offensive into Russia, saying that Kyiv’s military had taken control of another Russian village and captured more prisoners of war.
While in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, Zelenskyy said the new POWs from the Russian region of Kursk would help build an “exchange fund” to swap for captured Ukrainians.
“Another settlement in the Kursk region is now under Ukrainian control, and we have replenished the exchange fund,” Zelenskyy wrote on the social media platform X after hearing a report from his country’s top military commander, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.
Zelenskyy did not name the newly captured village and did not cross over into Russia, which would been regarded by Moscow as a provocation. He previously has said that Ukraine has no plans to occupy the area long term but wants to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from that area into Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said the Kursk operation launched Aug. 6 has reduced Russian shelling and civilian casualties in the Sumy region.
In another example of Ukraine’s intensifying attacks on Russia, emergency authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar region said a Ukrainian strike hit a cargo ferry loaded with fuel tanks at the port of Kavkaz, sparking a blaze. The port is on the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Russian Telegram channels posted videos purportedly showing a huge fire caused by the strike.
The daring Ukrainian foray has rattled the Kremlin, showing Russia’s vulnerability and shattering President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to pretend that the country has been largely unaffected by the 2 1/2-year war.
Ukraine’s push into Russia marks the first capture of Russian territory since World War II, but it comes as Kyiv continues to lose ground in eastern Ukraine.
Authorities in the city of Kursk, the capital of the Kursk region, began to put up concrete shelters at bus stops and other locations to protect against shelling. They plan similar work in Zheleznogorsk and Kurchatov, where a nuclear power plant is located, the region’s acting Gov. Alexei Smirnov said on his Telegram channel.
Putin has ordered the creation of self-defense units in Russian regions bordering Ukraine, the Russian leader said in a video call with officials.
Smirnov reported to Putin that over 133,000 people have left areas affected by the fighting in the Kursk region, while more than 19,000 have stayed.
The governor of Bryansk, another Russian region bordering Ukraine, said authorities there have conducted training for emergency evacuation as a precaution.
Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry reported repelling Ukrainian attacks near the villages of Komarovka, Malaya Loknya, Korenevka and several other settlements in the Kursk region.
Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov said 114 schools in Russia’s border regions will start teaching remotely when the school year begins at the start of September.
