Russia hits back at Ukraine as missile kills two near Kyiv

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged allies to allow his military to strike deep into Russian territory as his troops continue to hold ground gained in a surprise cross-border incursion last week and a missile attack killed two near Kyiv.

Russia’s defense ministry said its troops fired on Ukrainian soldiers in the western Kursk region in a bid to repel the first foreign incursion on its territory since World War II. The ministry said Sunday it downed four missiles and 35 drones over Kursk and neighboring regions overnight.

Moscow said earlier it was bringing in reinforcements to help quell Ukraine’s surprise cross-border attack – the biggest assault within Russia since President Vladimir Putin ordered a supposedly quick “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 that’s now well in its third year.

Officials in Kyiv have been tight-lipped about their goals, as they were during counteroffensives in 2022 and 2023. Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Saturday that Army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi was keeping him informed about “our actions to push the war out into the aggressor‘s territory” without offering more details.

Zelenskyy thanked his forces for creating “the kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”

Russia struck several regions of Ukraine overnight with four North Korean ballistic missiles and 57 Shahed drones, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Explosions were heard from the nation’s west to east.

The KN-23 missiles were fired from the Voronezh region of Russia, Oleshchuk said, adding that Ukraine shot down 53 drones.

The U.S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of sending millions of rounds of munitions and scores of ballistic missiles to Russia to aid in the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow and Pyongyang have denied despite evidence showing arms shipments taking place.

A residential building in the Brovary district east of Ukraine’s capital was destroyed in the overnight attack, killing a father and his 4-year-old son and seriously injuring at least three others, regional authorities said.

Russian troops continue to press along the front line in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and have also been storming positions in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, the General Staff in Kyiv said on Sunday.

Ukrainian officials have complained that delays in the arrival of promised Western aid are allowing the Kremlin to make grinding progress against an army already stretched by a lack of weapons and manpower.

While Kremlin ground forces has made slow gains in recent months, Ukraine has increasingly targeted military objects and energy infrastructure – often deep into Russia – with drones and missiles.

Russian military bloggers, who earlier reported Ukrainian advancing as deep as 23 miles into the Kursk region, said Kyiv’s troops had made no additional breakthroughs overnight.

Fighting around the town of Sudzha, the site of a key transit point for the last remaining pipeline carrying Russian gas to Europe, helped push European natural gas prices to the highest level this year on fears of possible disruptions to supplies.

Russia’s Gazprom PJSC reported flows across Ukraine within a normal range on Sunday.

Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom said the Kursk atomic power plant near the city of Kurchatov was operating normally, Tass reported Saturday. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi and Rosatom Chief Executive Officer Alexey Likhachev discussed the situation in a phone call late Friday, the company said in a website statement.

Russia’s Federal Security Service announced a “counter-terrorism” regime in Kursk and the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk border regions on Saturday, a move that allows for restrictions on movement and communications. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that was a response to Ukraine’s “unprecedented” attempt to destabilize the situation.

More than 76,000 residents have been evacuated from Russian border areas in the Kursk region in response to the fighting. The government declared a federal emergency in the region on Friday.

In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, which borders Kursk and other Russian regions, officials have been carrying out a mandatory evacuation of as many as 20,000 residents from a 6-mile zone under Russian fire.

Ukraine’s leading allies have endorsed the Kursk incursion. The Pentagon said the move is consistent with Washington’s policy on the use of U.S.-supplied weapons, while the European Union has said Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself, including with attacks on Russian territory.