A screenshot from a video that appears to show Russian soldiers being taken prisoner by AFU forces in the Kursk region. Photo: ASTRA
Authorities in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region declared a state of emergency on Wednesday evening amid reports that dozens of Russian troops had been captured by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) as they continued their incursion into the region.
Acting Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov admitted that the situation on the region’s border with Ukraine was “complicated” and announced a region-wide state of emergency to “mitigate the consequences of the incursion of enemy forces” on Wednesday evening.
On Thursday morning Smirnov reported that six Ukrainian drones and five missiles had been downed over the region overnight, in contrast to Russia’s Defence Ministry, which said that just two drones had been intercepted overnight.
While Russian Telegram channels widely reported the death of Russian state television correspondent and propagandist Yevgeny Poddubny in a Ukrainian drone strike on Wednesday, he was later reported to be seriously injured but alive, and was flown from a hospital in Kursk to Moscow for further treatment.
A map published by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) showed that Ukrainian forces had advanced a further 10 kilometres into the Kursk region on Wednesday, and had taken control of an approximately 350-square-kilometre area by Wednesday evening.
“Russian officials are attempting to balance presenting the effort as a notable Ukrainian escalation with avoiding overstating its potential implications and risking domestic discontent,” the ISW said.
Russian forces had “not yet been able to contain” the AFU’s advance in the region, according to pro-war Russian Telegram channel Rybar on Wednesday evening, with fighting concentrated around the towns of Sudzha and Korenevo, from which local residents were continuing to evacuate. Rybar and several other Telegram channels reported that much of Sudzha was under Ukrainian control as of Thursday morning.
Reports also began to emerge on Wednesday of Russian soldiers being taken prisoner by AFU forces in the region, with the number of captured troops being estimated by Ukrainian military bloggers at anywhere between 22 to 300.
Ukrainian Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podolyak told televised news on Thursday morning that the AFU’s incursions into the Kursk region could strengthen Ukraine’s negotiating position in any future peace talks with Moscow, as the Russian authorities would “understand that the war is not going according to their scenario”.
For his part, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev called on Russia to “advance into the lands of the currently still-existing Ukraine” in response to the AFU’s incursion into Russian territory and disregard the borders of what he called the “Ukrainian Reich” to capture Kyiv, Odesa and other cities.
