The Ukrainian army claimed on Wednesday, September 18, to have stopped the Russian counter-offensive in the areas of the Kursk region that it controls, specifying that “several thousand” Russian civilians were still in these territories.
The Ukrainian incursion that took the Russian army by surprise in August after two and a half years of invasion is the first by a foreign army in Russia since the Second World War, and is a snub to Vladimir Putin. kyiv is said to control some 1,000 km2 and a hundred localities. In mid-September Russia launched a counter-offensive and claimed advances, but according to kyiv the operation was stopped.
The Russians “tried to attack from the flanks but they were stopped, the situation has stabilised and today everything is under control,” Ukrainian regional command spokesman Oleksiy Dmytrachkivsky told AFP. “They had some minor successes, but this success has now turned into a virtual encirclement for them,” he added. “The Russians entered one locality. They started fighting for another locality, but that’s it.”
However, the Russian counteroffensive has not yet failed, and Moscow claims to have launched new attacks to retake lost territory. “The Russian operation in the Kursk region is still ongoing, so it is too early to say that it has completely failed,” a senior Ukrainian official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Thousands of Russian civilians
Spokesman Dmytrachkivsky further said that “several thousand” Russian civilians remained in Ukrainian-controlled territory. They were mostly elderly, but there were also children, he said, adding that one woman had given birth to a “healthy” boy in the territory. Dmytrachkivsky also accused the Russian military of launching airstrikes, including using gliding bombs, against his own territory in the area controlled by Ukrainian troops. At least “23 civilians killed” have been killed in these strikes since the end of August, he said. AFP could not confirm the veracity of these statements.
The spokesman denied any allegations of mistreatment of civilians by Ukrainian servicemen. “They receive water, food, bread, the military does not offend them,” he said, adding that shops and pharmacies were not operating.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Russian army said it was on the offensive in some areas of the Kursk region and was repelling Ukrainian attacks in others.