Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday to drive Ukrainian troops from his country’s territory as more civilians were urged to flee the surprise cross-border assault that has left the Kremlin scrambling and seen Kyiv seize back the initiative in the war.
Putin’s first major public intervention on the crisis came as battles raged inside Russia for a seventh day following the incursion into the Kursk border region by Ukrainian forces, who appeared to have advanced by up to 20 miles.
Residents were now also being evacuated from parts of the neighboring Belgorod region, in the latest sign that the Kremlin had failed to repel the threat of an intensifying offensive.
Speaking at a special meeting dedicated to the situation, the Russian leader ordered his defense ministry to “squeeze out, to knock out the enemy from our territories” before then solidifying Russia’s border defenses.
Ukraine’s stunning incursion has embarrassed the Kremlin and boosted morale but left many observers scratching their heads about what Kyiv might be hoping to achieve. Putin weighed in Monday, saying the assault aimed to improve Ukraine’s hand in future peace talks, ease the pressure on its embattled forces fighting on the front lines and fuel discord inside Russia.
“It appears the enemy is trying to improve its negotiation positions,” Putin said. Russia has been calling for peace talks in recent months but with the nonstarter condition that Kyiv cede vast territories annexed by Moscow in 2022.
The assault is also aimed, he said, at stopping the advance of Russian forces in the east and south of Ukraine. “What are the results?” Putin said, sounding irate. “All along the contact line, our forces are advancing,” he said, claiming the pace of Russian gains had accelerated in the past week.
Ukraine had also failed in a bid to sow discord and destroy the “unity” of the Russian people, he added, saying more people have signed up to serve in the army in recent days.
“The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response,” Putin concluded by saying.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the incursion for the first time Saturday after Kyiv had stayed largely mute about the operation. “Ukraine is proving that it really knows how to restore justice and guarantees exactly the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor,” Zelenskyy said.
The Russian defense ministry acknowledged Sunday its forces were still engaged in intense fighting with Ukrainian troops in Kursk. It said it was engaging Ukrainians near the villages of Tolpino, Obshchy Kolodez and Zhuravli, which are within 13 to 17 miles from the closest stretch of the Ukrainian border.
The Kremlin rushed reinforcements to the area last week, and Moscow’s defense ministry said later Monday that Ukraine had now lost about 1,600 troops in the operation, more than the number that military chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov said last week had attempted the incursion.
Putin said Monday that Ukrainian losses were “dramatically increasing.”
But the ongoing battles are a major blow to Putin’s internal standing, with the country’s influential military bloggers suggesting Monday that fighting inside Russia continued and that regions neighboring Kursk could also be at risk.
NBC News could not confirm any of the details. Ukraine has not commented on the number of its troops involved in the Kursk region.
Some images of Ukrainian troops inside Russia have started trickling in on social media.
NBC News was able to verify a video showing a Ukrainian flag being raised in the settlement of Guevo in the southern part of the Sudzha district in the Kursk region and a video of soldiers removing a Russian flag from the administration building of the village of Sverdlikovo, right on the border with Ukraine.
A national emergency was declared last week and tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from border communities in Kursk, amid reports of civilian casualties and destruction.
New evacuations were announced Monday in the Belovsky district, where the Russian defense ministry said Sunday that Ukrainian troops had tried to break through.
Acting Kursk governor Aleksei Smirnov reported to Putin Monday that 28 settlements in his region were under Ukraine’s control.
About 180,000 people in the region are subject to evacuation, Smirnov said, and more than 120,000 have already been evacuated or left on their own.
Meanwhile, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the neighboring Belgorod region, warned about a rise in “enemy activity” and said officials were starting to proactively evacuate people from the district.
District officials said later Monday that 11,000 people had been evacuated.
Putin warned that more Russian border regions could be attacked as he said Kyiv will try to further destabilize the situation inside the country, including in the Bryansk region bordering the north of Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the two sides accused each other of endangering Europe’s largest nuclear plant after a major fire broke out at the site.
Zelenskyy shared a video Sunday appearing to show smoke billowing from one of the towers at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. He said that Russian forces, who have occupied the site since the early weeks of the Feb. 2022 invasion, had started the fire.
Moscow blamed the Sunday incident on Ukraine.
The Kremlin-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, Evgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram that one of the cooling towers was hit by a Ukrainian drone.
Both Ukrainian and Russian officials have said radiation levels at the plant remained normal.
The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a statement on X Sunday that its experts witnessed “strong dark smoke” coming from the plant’s northern area “following multiple explosions heard in the evening” but that there was no impact on nuclear safety.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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