Putin orders army to ‘dislodge’ Ukraine as over 120,000 flee border

President Vladimir Putin ordered his army yesterday to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory as authorities said over 120,000 people had been evacuated away from the fighting.
Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing over two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.
Ukraine’s military chief Oleksandr Syrsky told President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video posted yesterday that his troops now control about 1,000sq km of Russian territory and are continuing “offensive operations”.
Putin told a televised meeting with government officials that “one of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord” and “destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society”.
“The main task is, of course, for the defence ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he said. Zelensky told the nation in his evening address that the cross-border offensive was “purely a security issue”, capturing “areas from which the Russia army struck at our Sumy region”.
Some 121,000 people have fled the Kursk region since the start of the fighting, which has killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121 more, regional governor Alexei Smirnov told the meeting with Putin. Authorities in Kursk announced yesterday they were widening their evacuation area to include a district with some 14,000 residents. The neighbouring Belgorod region also said it was evacuating a new border district.
Ukraine has pierced into the region by at least 12km (seven miles) and has captured 28 towns and villages, with the new front 40km long, Smirnov said.
But Syrsky said that “as of now, about 1,000 square kilometres of Russian territory are under control,” suggesting the area captured is more than twice as large.
He said that fighting was ongoing along almost the whole front and “the situation is under our control”.
Putin said Russia would respond by showing “unanimous support for all those in distress” and claimed there had been an increase in men signing up to fight.
“The enemy will receive a worthy riposte,” he said.
The assault appeared to catch the Kremlin off guard. Russia’s army rushed in reserve troops, tanks, aviation, artillery and drones in a bid to quash it.
But it conceded on Sunday that Ukraine had penetrated up to 30km into Russian territory in places.
A Ukrainian security official told AFP, on condition of anonymity over the weekend, that “the aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilise the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border”.
The Ukrainian official said thousands of Ukrainian troops were involved in the operation.