Ukraine updates: Kyiv to create 'buffer zone' in Kursk

Ukraine says its army will allow the evacuation of civilians from Russia's Kursk region and open up the area to international humanitarian organizations.

"Our military forces plan to... open humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians: both in the direction of Russia and of Ukraine," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said after a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials.

Speaking after the same meeting, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said Ukraine would create a "buffer zone" in the region to stop Russian cross-border strikes.

"The creation of a buffer zone in the Kursk region is a step to protect our border communities from daily hostile shelling," he said.

Ukraine is constructing defenses along its border with Russia — between its own Sumy region and Russia's Kursk, where its forces have been operating since entering Russian territory last week. 

Kyiv's forces are readying for a massive counterattack that could include fighting in the frontier regions, as well as rocket attacks on "decision-making centers" in the capital, Kyiv.  

Workers using heavy machinery were seen constructing new defensive barricades in the Sumy region on Wednesday. 

The obstacles included "dragon's teeth" — concrete structures aimed at impeding tanks — and barbed wire.

More than 10,000 cases of people being accused of "discrediting" the Russian army have been initiated since Moscow's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022, according to a website that monitors the country's courts.

Soon after the start of the full-scale invasion, Russian lawmakers passed legislation that punishes public acts or statements deemed critical of the armed forces. . 

"The 10,000th case was submitted to court in the first week of August," the Mediazona website said.

Most cases were brought in the first months of the war, and the total number of charges reached 5,614 by the end of 2022, according to Mediazona. They have registered at least 1,410 cases in 2024 so far.

Anyone found guilty of an initial offense can be fined up to 50,000 rubles ($566), in a country where the average salary is around $818.

However, those who face a repeat charge within a year are criminalized, risking a prison sentence of up to five years — or seven years if their actions led to injuries, death or mass public order offenses.

Moscow says it has fended off efforts by Ukrainian troops to push further into the Kursk region after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces were advancing.

"The attempts by enemy mobile units using armored equipment to break through deeper into Russian territory have been repelled," the Russian defense ministry said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has held a meeting on the security and humanitarian situation in Russia's Kursk region. 

Zelenskyy said the military has continued advancing in the cross-border assault it launched last week.

"Security, humanitarian aid, creation of military administrations if necessary," he said on the Telegram messaging channel, posting a video of the meeting with Kyiv's top officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Kyiv's troops have advanced 1-2 kilometers (0.6-1.2 miles) in various directions on Wednesday amid an ongoing incursion into Russia's Kursk region that has entered its second week.

The president said more than 100 Russian servicemen had been taken captive.

Also on Wednesday, Ukraine's military said on the messaging app Telegram that its forces had shot down a Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber in the region.

"Work to eliminate the occupiers, their equipment and weapons continues on an ongoing basis," it said.

The claims cannot yet be independently verified.

They come as Russia's Belgorod border region, which adjoins the Kursk region, declared an emergency under heavy shelling by Ukrainian forces.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo has given his support to Ukraine's military operation in Russia's Kursk region as a self-defense measure against Moscow's invasion of its territory.

"Ukraine has the right to self-defense, and it's clear that they can do their operation in Kursk," Orpo told a joint press conference in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, with his Estonian counterpart, Kristen Michal.

Finland has emerged as a major supporter of Ukraine as it fights the Russian invasion, and it signed a 10-year agreement on security cooperation and long-term support with Kyiv in April.

The Nordic country has also been a member of NATO for just over a year, having applied to join the Western military alliance largely in reponse to the invasion by Russia, with which it shares a 1,340 kilometer (830 mile) border.

Michal also voiced her support for Kyiv's actions and said Estonia was supporting Ukraine in every way that it could.

"We fully support Ukraine in different operations to liberate their country and to achieve the victory. And yes, to be honest, on my personal level, I wish them luck."

Russia's National Guard announced that it is increasing its presence around the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, citing the risk posed by Ukrainian drone attacks.

The Kursk plant is one of the four biggest electricity producers in Russia. It provides most of the power in Kursk Oblast and 19 other regions. It is home to two active and two decommissioned reactors.

Since the outbreak of the war in February 2022, there have been fears of the fighting coming too close to nuclear reactors on both sides of the border. 

Shortly after Russia's initial invasion of Ukraine, there was intense fighting around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. As the largest nuclear power station in Europe, the conflict triggered fears of a nuclear meltdown. The plant has seen sporadic fighting over the last two years.

A German court has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian national over the September 2022 attack on the Russian-European Nord Stream gas pipelines, according to media reports.

The pipelines had long been controversial for their role in European reliance on Russian gas for energy.

German news outlets ARD, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit published an investigation saying that the suspect, named only as Volodymyr Z. for legal reasons, had hired a German yacht to sail to the Baltic Sea.

It's believed that he and two alleged accomplices, also Ukrainians, then placed explosives on the pipelines which led to a subsequent gas leak.

Volodymyr Z. was last known to be living in a village outside of Warsaw, Poland.

Following questions as to why Poland did not honor the European arrest warrant within the required 60 days, a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office said that the suspect had fled to Ukraine before they could do so.

After Kyiv announced it had taken control of 74 towns and villages in Kursk, US President Joe Biden said the offensive was a "real dilemma" for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine hit Kursk with drone attacks and missiles on Wednesday. Western powers recently changed their minds about allowing Ukranian forces to use their weapons inside Russian territory, allowing them to push further into Kursk.

Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrsky said late on Tuesday that "control over 40 square kilometers of territory has been taken" over the past day.

Kyiv has not confirmed the point of the offensive other than to say the goal is not to permanently control Russian territory.

The Kremlin believes Ukraine wants leverage during a possible cease-fire deal, while officials in Washington have speculated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to force the Kremlin to pull troops out of Ukraine and move them to Kursk.

Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on the messaging app Telegram that "the situation in our Belgorod region remains extremely difficult and tense due to shellings from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Houses are destroyed, civilians died and were injured."

He added that "a state of emergency will be introduced on the regional level, followed by a request to the governmental commission to declare a federal state of emergency."

Last week, Russia's Kursk region on the border with Ukraine also declared a state of emergency amid the largest land incursion into Russian territory since World War II.

Gladkov said that on Tuesday, two more Russian settlements were attacked by Ukrainian forces.

es/nm (AFP, Reuters, AP, dpa)