Ukraine continued its advance inside Russia for a fourth day on Friday, fighting to capture a town near the border and sending small units to carry out raids into Russia’s western Kursk region, independent military experts and pro-Kremlin military bloggers reported.
As Ukraine tried to capitalize on its surprise incursion, the Russian military announced it would send more troops and armored vehicles to try to repel the attack. Russian television broadcast videos of columns of military trucks carrying artillery pieces, heavy machine guns and tanks.
At the same time, Ukrainian authorities evacuated 20,000 people from the Sumy region, across the border from Kursk, apparently in anticipation of possible Russian retaliatory strikes.
Military analysts say the Ukrainian attack is the largest on Russian soil since the start of the war. The offensive, which began on Tuesday, has temporarily changed the focus of the conflict, opening a new front inside Russia and forcing Moscow to rush to stop the Ukrainian advance.
However, the operation has raised questions about whether the risk is worth it, given that Ukrainian forces are already stretched to the limit. It is also unclear whether this mission will help Ukraine improve its position on the rest of the battlefield, where it has been losing ground for many months.
kyiv’s allies have in the past been wary of Ukrainian incursions into Russia, fearing they could escalate the war, but there has been no public indication that Western capitals oppose the attack. The United States has said the Ukrainian incursion does not violate U.S. guidelines.
Senior US officials have privately said, however, that they were not briefed in advance on the operation and are still seeking clarity on its logic and rationale.
Officials said they understood kyiv’s need to change the perception and narrative of the war, but were skeptical that Ukraine could hold territory long enough to force Russia to divert significant forces from offensives it is conducting in eastern and southern Ukraine.
“It’s a gamble,” said a senior administration official.
Still, Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior presidential adviser, was optimistic about the international response. “The majority quietly approves,” he wrote on social media late Thursday, adding that a significant portion of the world now considers Russia “a legitimate target for any operations and types of weapons.”
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Fighting showed no sign of abating on Friday, with the Ukrainian military saying it had attacked a Russian airfield in the Lipetsk region bordering Kursk, hitting warehouses containing guided aerial bombs. Local Russian authorities said a large drone attack had caused several explosions and a fire at a military airfield.
Ukrainian authorities also reported that a Russian strike on a supermarket in Kostiantynivka, an eastern town 320 kilometers south of the fighting zone, killed 10 people and wounded 35 others. It was not possible to independently verify the claims by either side.
The Ukrainian military has remained silent on the operation and has not publicly acknowledged launching a cross-border attack.
Military analysts said the attack involved elements of at least four brigades in a rare example of successful maneuver operations that included artillery support, air defenses and electronic warfare, resulting in rapid advances on the ground.
“It appears to be a fairly well-coordinated and planned combined armed operation,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst. “Electronic warfare assets were deployed to block Russian command and control. Air defenses were also deployed to create protective bubbles around the Ukrainian advance. And then mechanized formations advanced at a steady pace.”
According to Gady and other experts, the main question now is whether Ukraine can maintain the momentum and turn the success on Russian soil into useful gains. The Ukrainian military has few reserves available and continues to suffer from a shortage of weapons and ammunition, analysts say.
It is also unclear what Ukraine ultimately hopes to achieve. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the goal was to divert Russian troops from other parts of the front line where Ukrainian units are facing difficulties. However, military experts suggest Russia could respond with reserves that are not involved in the fighting in Ukraine.
“Does it really solve any of the larger strategic problems facing other parts of the front line?” Gady asked.
A map of the battlefield compiled by Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes terrain images, shows that Ukrainian troops have gained around 260 square kilometers of Russian territory since the start of the attack, although it is not clear whether they have managed to control the entire area. They have overcome two Russian defense lines.
In particular, the Ukrainian army has surrounded Sudzha, a small town of about 6,000 inhabitants located six miles from the border between Ukraine and Russia.
Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Black Bird Group, wrote on social media that some Ukrainian units appeared to be conducting scouting sorties further north toward Lgov, a town about 50 miles from the border, in what appears to be a test of Russian defenses.
A video posted on social media Friday morning and verified by The New York Times showed a column of destroyed Russian military vehicles east of Rylsk, a town west of the border zone captured by Ukraine.
It remains to be seen whether Ukraine will try to advance further into Russian territory to consolidate control over the captured area, or whether it will retreat after a few days, as has happened in previous smaller-scale cross-border incursions.
Kastehelmi said Ukraine would not be able to continue advancing north without expanding its flanks and exposing itself to Russian counterattacks. “Time is also against the Ukrainians,” he wrote. “The Russians will not be disorganized forever.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington, DC.
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