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Russia dispatched military reinforcements to confront Ukrainian forces in an ongoing battle in its western Kursk region.
A second liquefied natural gas tanker has docked at an export terminal in northern Russia that’s subject to US sanctions, satellite images show.
Russia hits back at incursion, missile kills two near Kyiv
President Volodymyr Zelensky urged allies to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory as his troops continue to hold the ground gained in a surprise cross-border incursion last week and a missile attack killed two near Kyiv.
Russia’s defence ministry said its troops fired on Ukrainian soldiers in the western Kursk region in a bid to repel the first foreign incursion on its territory since World War 2. The ministry said on Sunday it downed four missiles and 35 drones over Kursk and neighbouring regions overnight.
Moscow said earlier it was bringing in reinforcements to help quell Ukraine’s surprise cross-border attack — the biggest assault within Russia since President Vladimir Putin ordered a supposedly quick “special military operation” against Ukraine in 2022 that’s now well in its third year.
Officials in Kyiv have been tight-lipped about their goals, as they were during counteroffensives in 2022 and 2023. Zelensky said in his nightly address on Saturday that army Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi was keeping him informed about “our actions to push the war out into the aggressor‘s territory” without offering more details.
Zelensky thanked his forces for creating “the kind of pressure that is needed — pressure on the aggressor.”
Russia struck several regions of Ukraine overnight with four North Korean ballistic missiles and 57 Shahed drones, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. Explosions were heard from the nation’s west to east.
The KN-23 missiles were fired from the Voronezh region of Russia, Oleshchuk said, adding that Ukraine shot down 53 drones.
Read more: North Korea’s economy rebounds as Kim-Putin ties fuel arms trade
The US and South Korea have accused North Korea of sending millions of rounds of munitions and scores of ballistic missiles to Russia to aid in the invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow and Pyongyang have denied despite evidence showing arms shipments taking place.
A residential building in the Brovary district east of the capital was destroyed in the overnight attack, killing a father and his four-year-old son and seriously injuring at least three others, regional authorities said.
Russian troops continued to press along the frontline in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and have also been storming positions in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, the General Staff in Kyiv said on Sunday.
Ukrainian officials have complained that delays in the arrival of promised Western aid are allowing the Kremlin to make grinding progress against an army already stretched by a lack of weapons and manpower.
While Kremlin ground forces have made slow gains in recent months, Ukraine has increasingly targeted military objects and energy infrastructure — often deep into Russia — with drones and missiles.
Read more: Russian army chief blamed for failings over Ukrainian incursion
Russia says army still fighting to repel Ukrainian incursion
Russia dispatched military reinforcements to confront Ukrainian forces in an ongoing battle in its western Kursk region.
The Defence Ministry in Moscow said Saturday that tanks had “taken up firing positions” against Ukrainian troops, whose surprise cross-border operation is the biggest assault on Russia since Putin ordered the 2022 invasion of Ukraine in a “special military operation” aimed at taking days or weeks.
Artillery and air strikes were deployed to prevent Ukrainian attempts to “break through deep into Russian territory” in the region, the ministry said in a Telegram statement.
Russia’s Federal Security Service announced a “counter-terrorism” regime in Kursk and the neighbouring Belgorod and Bryansk border regions on Saturday, a move that allows for restrictions on movement. The National Anti-Terrorism Committee said that was a response to Ukraine’s “unprecedented attempt to destabilise the situation.”
Putin looked grim-faced at a regular meeting of his Security Council on Friday, though he offered no comment on the crisis that’s spiralling into the most serious wartime challenge to the Kremlin since last year’s short-lived mutiny by Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prighozin.
Russia’s air defences downed 26 drones overnight in the Kursk region and another six over the Yaroslavl region northeast of Moscow, the Defence Ministry said on Telegram.
The Emergencies Ministry has evacuated more than 76,000 residents from border areas in the Kursk region in response to the fighting, the state-run Tass news service reported Saturday. Authorities in Moscow declared a federal emergency in the region on Friday.
While much of the situation on the battlefield remained unclear, Russian military bloggers reported Ukrainian advances as deep as 37km into the Kursk region.
A video posted on social media appeared to show a column of at least a dozen Russian troop vehicles that had been destroyed in the Rylsk district. The footage couldn’t be independently verified.
Zelensky convened a meeting of his war council on Friday to hear military reports on “our defensive actions in the directions from which Russia launched attacks on” Ukraine, in a post on the X social media platform.
In his regular video address to Ukrainians later, Zelensky hinted at the progress of his military by thanking troops for “ensuring replenishment of the swap fund” in capturing Russian soldiers as prisoners of war, saying “it has been especially productive in the past three days”.
In Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, bordering Kursk and other Russian regions, officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of as many as 20,000 residents from a 10km zone under fire.
The spectacular operation in Kursk is a boost for Ukrainian army Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, who’s faced criticism over his leadership, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta research institute in Kyiv, in a Facebook post.
“We have been waiting for something like this for a long time,” Fesenko said.
Second LNG tanker seen docking at sanctioned Russian facility
A second liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker has docked at an export terminal in northern Russia that’s subject to US sanctions, satellite images show.
The ship’s appearance and length of about 290m matches the Asya Energy, according to satellite images from Planet Labs. Its arrival follows the apparent export of the Arctic LNG 2 plant’s first cargo earlier this month on another ship that also concealed its true location and was owned by the same India-based company.
The Asya Energy is part of a suspected “dark fleet” of LNG vessels Moscow is setting up to carry gas to willing buyers, similar to a group of ships assembled to carry Russian oil. Traders are still closely tracking the Pioneer — the first tanker to dock at the Arctic facility, which had been struggling to start exports due to Western restrictions — as it heads toward Europe.
The US imposed sanctions in November to prevent the start of exports from Arctic LNG 2. While the facility began production in December, it was unable to begin shipping fuel as sanctions deterred foreign companies and stopped delivery of specialised, ice-ready carriers. DM
