In the past week, Ukraine has launched an offensive in Kursk, marking the most significant cross-border attack since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Kursk region, located in western Russia and bordering Ukraine, has a population of approximately 1.2 million people. The Ukrainian offensive, which began on August 6, took Kremlin officials by surprise. Moscow has struggled to repel the attack for over a week and has announced emergency measures, including the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of civilians. Both Kyiv and Moscow have now confirmed operations in the Russian border regions, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy affirmed on Saturday that his armed forces are fighting within Russian territory.
Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top commander, claimed on Monday that Ukrainian forces controlled about 1,000 square kilometers of Russia’s Kursk region six days into the offensive. This is nearly equivalent to the area that Russia has advanced into Ukraine this year, according to analysts. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, estimated Ukraine’s gains at around 800 square kilometers based on satellite imagery and open-source information. “We continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Kursk region. Currently, we control about 1,000 square kilometers of the territory of the Russian Federation,” Syrskii stated in a video posted on Zelenskyy’s Telegram account on Tuesday.
On the same day, Zelenskyy reported that Ukrainian forces now control 74 Russian settlements in the Kursk region as a result of the border-crossing operation. The Russian-Ukrainian land border stretches approximately 1,974 kilometers. Nearly 200,000 people have been forced to evacuate from border areas.
The governor of the Belgorod region declared a state of emergency on Wednesday, blaming Ukraine for the ongoing shelling. “The situation in the Belgorod region remains extremely difficult and tense,” said Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov in a video shared on the Telegram app. He added that daily bombardments by Ukrainian armed forces have destroyed homes and resulted in civilian casualties. “Therefore, we have decided that starting today, we declare a regional emergency throughout the Belgorod region… with a subsequent request to the government to declare a federal emergency.”
President Zelenskyy stated that Russian forces have conducted nearly 2,100 artillery strikes from the Kursk region against Ukraine’s Sumy region since June 1, 2024, and that Ukraine’s operations into Kursk aim to secure the country’s borders against the Russian military. Zelenskyy insisted this offensive is tactical—aimed not at seizing Russian territory but instead at pressuring Russia toward a ceasefire. “Russia brought war to others; now it is coming home,” he said on Tuesday.
The Institute for the Study of War reported that geolocated footage indicated that Ukrainian forces have recently been active in Sudzha and northern Zaoleshenka. On August 12, it was claimed that Ukraine had captured the city of Sudzha, according to Russian sources. Intense fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces is taking place near a pipeline that Russia uses to supply gas to European countries. However, network operators and gas companies reported on Tuesday that the flow of gas has not been disrupted.
Sudzha is the site of the only pumping station for Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine. European countries such as Austria, Hungary, and Slovakia still purchase gas from Russia, all of which flows through Sudzha. Located about 10 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, Sudzha sees an average of 42 million cubic meters (1.5 billion cubic feet) of Russian gas transported through its pipelines to Europe each day. The city houses a gas metering system that measures this flow. Despite the ongoing war with Russia, Kyiv has allowed gas to continue to be sent through its Soviet-era pipeline uninterrupted as part of a $2 billion annual contract between the state-owned Naftogaz and Russia’s Gazprom.