Zelensky confirms Ukrainian troops fighting inside Russia

By Ivana Kottasová, Maria Kostenko, Clare Sebastian and Alex Stambaugh, CNN

(CNN) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed Kyiv’s troops are fighting inside Russia, days into the surprise Ukrainian cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region that has become a major embarrassment for the Kremlin.

“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,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation on Saturday, thanking “every unit” of Ukraine’s armed forces for making it possible “to push the war out into the aggressor’s territory.”

The statement marked the first time Zelensky officially acknowledged the incursion, which took by surprise both Russia and Ukraine’s allies. Ukrainian officials have for days remained tight-lipped about the operation, even as photographs, videos and firsthand reports of Ukrainian soldiers inside Russia started to emerge.

Now into its sixth day, the attack on Kursk is a significant development in the more than two-year old conflict.

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the border region of Belgorod with airstrikes and pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups have conducted limited cross-border attacks, but the Kursk operation marked the first time that regular Ukrainian and special operations units have entered Russian territory.

The surprise factor appear to have worked: as of Sunday, Russian troops seemed to struggle to stop the Ukrainian advances and push Kyiv troops back.

The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitoring group, said in its latest assesment on Sunday that geolocated footage and Russian reporting from Saturday indicated that Ukrainian forces maintained their positions in the region and have advanced slightly further.

By Friday Russian authorities had lost control over at least 250 square kilometers of territory, according to several independent analyses and CNN’s mapping.

The governor of Kursk region has urged authorities there to speed up evacuations on Sunday. More than 76,000 people from the border areas had left their homes as as of Saturday, according to the Russian state news agency TASS .

Russia strikes Kyiv

The surprise attack in Kursk, which Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “major provocation,” has been a significant win for Kyiv as it continues to struggle to hang onto its territory along parts of the 1,000 kilometre frontline.

Moscow has pushed on with its slow, grinding offensive, edging closer in recent weeks to several strategically important towns and roads in eastern Ukraine.

Early on Sunday, Moscow launched drone and missile attacks against Kyiv region, according to local officials. A four-year-old boy and his father were killed in a Russian strike in Brovary, just east of the capital city, the officials said, adding that another child was seriously injured.

In a video statement released on Sunday, Zelensky said that “this week alone, the Russian army launched more than 30 missiles and over 800 guided aerial bombs,”

Mykola Oleshchuk, Ukrainian Air Force Commander, said Russia attacked Ukraine using, among other weapons, North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles and Iran-made Shahed drones. CNN cannot independently verify that claim.

It has been a deadly summer for Ukrainian people, with July marking the deadliest month for civilian casualties since October 2022, according to UN human rights monitors.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said at least 219 civilians were were killed and 1,018 injured in what the agency previously called a “deadly wave of missile strikes on densely populated areas of Ukraine.”

CNN’s Radina Gigova and Olga Voytovich contributed reporting.

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