Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russian strikes deserved 'fair' response, says Zelenskyy - as Ukrainian troops reportedly enter another Russian region (2024)

By Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor

With his troops battling hard inside Russia, Ukraine's president has finally broken his silence on an invasion that has stunned his much larger and more powerful neighbour.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the operation, which began on Tuesday in Russia's southwestern Kursk region, as "our actions to push the war out into the aggressor's territory".

Giving a further indication of the goal of the surprise assault, he said: "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."

Details about the number of Ukrainian soldiers inside Russia remain unclear as commanders have deliberately stayed silent about a mission that was planned in secret.

But it is likely to be in the thousands, with elements from at least three well-equipped brigades on the ground, deploying tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery guns and drones.

Also hard to measure is how far the Ukrainian attackers have pushed, with Russian military bloggers saying they have penetrated up to around 12 miles from the Ukrainian border.

Videos, widely circulated on social media, purport to show Ukrainian soldiers raising the yellow and blue flag of Ukraine over Russian territory, including in the town of Sudzha and a settlement close to the Ukrainian border in the next door region of Belgorod.

Under pressure, Russia has rushed in reinforcements and released footage of its military fighting back, but this is the sixth day of the Ukrainian offensive and battles are still raging.

Commenting on events, analysts have noted that it is the first time Russia has been invaded since Adolf Hitler in 1941.

But Ukraine's attack is not the act of an aggressive power making a land grab.

Instead it is the counterintuitive action of a nation that was invaded by Vladimir Putin's Russia a decade ago - with the capture of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine - and subsequently further devastated by Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

It makes Kyiv's counter invasion into Kursk just the latest - though arguably the most audacious - effort by Ukraine to repel Russian forces from inside its own sovereign territory.

Russia forces have lit a fire at a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.

Flames could be seen on the premises of the Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been occupied by Russian forces for much of the war, the Ukrainian president said.

In a statement on X, he said radiationindicators were normal.

He also shared a video purporting to show the fire. Sky News has not independently verified the clip.

A local official in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol, whichlooks out onto the plant, said there was unofficial informationthat Russian forces had set fire to numerous tyres in the cooling towers.

He urged residents to remain calm.

Russian authorities in charge of the plant said the fire had started near the facility's cooling towers, and rescuers were working to put it out.

Ukrainian troops have been seen riding armoured vehicles near the Russian border.

Photos taken by Reuters showed a number of troops operating in the city of Sumy - the area used to launched Ukraine's surprise invasion of Russia's Kursk region.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appeared to suggest this evening that the invasion was launched as a "fair" response to Russian strikes on Sumy over the summer.

Earlier today, the Ukrainian president issued his first comments on his forces' invasion of Russia's Kursk region.

There have been very few details released about the operation, with Ukrainian officials adopting a policy of secrecy over its goal and why it has taken place.

But in his nightly address, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appeared to suggest the move has been made in retaliation to strikes conducted by Russian forces from Kursk.

He said Russia deserved a "fair" response after it launched nearly 2,000 cross-borderstrikes at Ukraine's Sumy regionover the summer.

"Artillery, mortars, drones. We also record missile strikes,and each such strike deserves a fair response," he said.

Reports have suggested that as many as 6,000 troops may have crossed the border, and Ukrainian media outlets have suggested today that Kyiv's forces have also entered Russia's Belgorod region.

Now six days into the invasion, US -based thinktank The Institute for the Study of War has said Ukrainian forces are largely holding their position in the Sudzha area of Kursk.

Russia has carried out aerial weapons strike against Ukrainian forces in Kursk, the country's defence ministry has said.

In a post on Telegram, it said "clusters of manpower, armoured and motor vehicles" were targeted.

"The strike was carried out with unguided aerial missiles against reconnaissance targets," it said.

"After the use of the aerial weapons, the crews performed an anti-missile manoeuvre, released decoy flares and returned to the site of departure."

It claimed the targets had been destroyed.

Ukraine's invasion of Russia's Kursk region was a moment that caught Moscow and the world by surprise.

It was the largest incursion into Russian territory since the start of the war.

While Ukrainian officials have remained tight-lipped over the details of the operation, we have seen Russia evacuating other areas near the border.

Here's a timeline of what has happened in the invasion so far:

Ukrainian units launched the surprise operation in the Kursk border region onTuesday 6 August.

By Wednesday 7 August, Ukrainian forces had advanced as much as 10km inside the Russian territory.

The US-based thinktank, the Institute for the Study of War, geolocated footage of Ukrainian forces in several locations and verified images showing Russian prisoners of war being taken at border checkpoints.

Ukrainian forces continued their advance on Thursday 8 August.

By Friday 9 August, a video emerged appearing to show Ukrainian soldiers in control of a local gas facility in the town of Sudzha.

Ukraine continued to expand their presence on Saturday 10 August.

Now six days into the invasion, this latest map shows that Ukrainian forces are largely holding their position, while the Russian military has evacuated 76,000 people from the area.

Ukrainian media outlets have also started reporting that Ukrainian forces appear to have entered Kursk's neighbouring region of Belgorod, with a video showing them in the Russian village of Poroz.

Sky News has not been able to independently verify this.

Meanwhile, the Russian government has imposed a "counter-terror" operation in the three border regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk.

This allows authorities to relocate residents, confiscate vehicles and control phone communications.

People evacuating from the border areas of Russia's Kursk region have been receiving aid from the Russian Red Cross.

Red Cross workers have been visiting temporary accommodation centres to help those who have fled, and a hotline has been set up to reunite relatives.

The Kursk office of the aid organisation said it received almost 3,000 calls in less than a day.

Around 76,000 residents have been evacuated so far, a Russian Emergencies Ministry spokesman said yesterday,

Ukraine's invasion of the Russian region began earlier this week and been considered an embarrassment to Russian military leaders, who were forced to scramble to contain the breach.

The exact aims of the operation remain unclear, and Ukrainian military officials have adopted a policy of secrecy, with little details of the invasion released.

Earlier today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged fighting in Kursk for the first time - five days after it started.

He said he had discussed the operation with top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.

"Today, I received several reports from commander-in-chief Syrskyi regarding the front lines and our actions to push the war on to the aggressor's territory," he said.

"Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor."

Russia has been "stealing" Ukraine's natural resources, the UK's defence ministry has said.

In a post on X, the MoD said Russian troops had heavily mined Ukraine's "resource-rich area" of Dniprorudne inZaporizhzhia.

The "loot" had then been transported back to Russia for it to be used in the country or exported.

It said Moscow was trying to ruin Ukraine's economic potential by taking its "most valuable assets".

"Stealing resources from Ukraine entrenches the Russian occupation of these areas," it added.

Away from the invasion of the Russian Kursk region, fighting is continuing in parts of Ukraine.

In Crimea - an area that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 - the Ukrainian defence intelligence unit has claimed to have destroyed one of Moscow's speed boats.

It said a special unit used a marine attack drone to target the vessel.

"As a result of the operation, three more watercraft of the invaders were also damaged," it said.

Residents have gathered outside a building in Russia's Kursk region that was damaged in an attack overnight.

A burnt-out car sits outside the building.

Thirteen people were injured in the Ukrainian drone and missile attack, the regional governor has said.

One woman was seen being wheeled into an ambulance on a stretcher.

Elsewhere, a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kyiv overnight killed two people - a man and his four-year-old son.

They were pulled from underneath the rubble of a building.