Russian counteroffensive in Ukrainian-controlled Kursk begins, says Zelenskyy
KYIV - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Thursday that Russia had launched a counteroffensive to take back the parts of its Kursk region occupied by Ukrainian forces last month.
The president also said that three staff members from the International Committee of the Red Cross were killed when their vehicles were hit by Russian shelling in the eastern Donetsk region.
Speaking at a news conference with the Lithuanian president, Zelenskyy said that the Russian “counteroffensive actions were according to our Ukrainian plan.”
He declined to say anything more about the region, which Ukraine overtook during a surprise incursion in early August. Zelenskyy has stated before that Kursk - where Ukraine grabbed about 500 square miles, including 100 settlements and nearly 600 prisoners of war - was part of his plan to end the conflict.
In the past two days, though, the Russian Defense Ministry said that its troops had reclaimed 10 settlements in the region.
The size, scale and outcome of the Russian counterattack “are unclear and the situation remains fluid,” said a report released Wednesday by the Institute for the Study of War, but it did report evidence of some Russian advances.
A commander fighting inside the Kursk region confirmed that the counteroffensive had begun but said that “everything is under control.”
“We will hold,” said the commander, whom The Post agreed to identify by his call sign, Boxer, in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol. “The situation is serious, everything is being shelled, and the road on which supplies were brought is no longer usable. It’s under fire. Drones are already everywhere in Sudzha. But we are in control. We are holding.”
On Tuesday, British Defense Secretary John Healey, in an update to the House of Commons, applauded the Kursk operation, adding that “the longer they hold Kursk, the weaker Putin becomes. The longer they hold Kursk, the better defended Ukraine will be.”
Meanwhile, in the eastern city of Pokrovsk - an important logistics hub on which Russian troops are steadily advancing - Ukrainian authorities said that critical infrastructure had been destroyed in Russian attacks, leaving the city without gas for cooking or drinking water.
About 18,000 people remain in Pokrovsk, Donetsk regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin said, including 522 children. About 20,000 people have fled, and last week, the final evacuation train departed.
“Evacuation is the only … choice for civilians,” Filashkin said.
In the village of Viroliubivka, near the front lines in the Donetsk region, two Red Cross vehicles about to distribute wood and coal to help warm homes this winter were hit by shelling, killing three people and injuring two.
“It’s unconscionable that shelling would hit an aid distribution site,” said the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger. “Our hearts are broken today as we mourn the loss of our colleagues and care for the injured. This tragedy unleashes a wave of grief all too familiar to those who have lost loved ones in armed conflict.”