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Both Sides Brace for Escalation as Ukraine Pushes Further Into Russia
The Ukrainian police said they were evacuating people from the border area, perhaps in anticipation of a retaliatory strike, while Russia sent reinforcements.
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
Four days into Ukraine’s surprise assault into western Russia, both sides were bracing for an escalation in the fighting.
The Ukrainian national police said on Friday that they were evacuating about 20,000 people from an area bordering the combat zone, while the Russian military announced it was sending more troops and armored vehicles to try to repel the attack.
Russian television released videos of columns of military trucks carrying artillery pieces, heavy machine guns and tanks. The Russian Defense Ministry said the trucks were heading toward the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been advancing quickly.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities were evacuating 28 settlements in the Sumy region, which sits across the border from Kursk, in what appeared to be anticipation for Russian retaliatory strikes.
Military analysts say the Ukrainian assault is the largest on Russian soil since the war began. Kyiv’s forces have captured several settlements and are now battling to take complete control of a town that serves as a road hub near the border.
It is also sending small units to conduct raids further into the Kursk region, independent military experts and pro-Kremlin military bloggers said.
The surprise offensive into Russia, which began on Tuesday, has temporarily shifted the focus of the war, opening a new front inside Russia and prompting Moscow to scramble to halt the Ukrainian advance.
But the operation has raised questions about whether it is worth the risk, given that Ukrainian forces are already stretched. It is also not clear whether the mission will help Ukraine improve its position on the rest of the battlefield, where it has been steadily losing ground for many months.
The fighting showed no signs of abating on Friday, with the Ukrainian military saying that it had struck a Russian airfield in the Lipetsk region, which borders Kursk, hitting warehouses that contain guided aerial bombs. Local Russian authorities said a large drone attack had caused several explosions and that a fire had broken out at a military airfield.
The Ukrainian authorities also said a Russian strike on a supermarket in Kostiantynivka, an eastern town 200 miles south of the area of the fighting, killed 10 people and wounded 35 others. The claims from both sides could not be independently verified.
The Ukrainian military has enforced a policy of silence about the operation, and has not publicly acknowledged launching a cross-border attack.
Military analysts said the attack had involved elements of at least four brigades in a rare example of successful maneuver operations involving support from artillery, air defenses and electronic warfare, resulting in quick advances on the ground.
“It seems to be a fairly well-coordinated an planned combined armed operation,” said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst. “You have electronic warfare assets that were deployed to jam Russian command and control. You have air defenses that were moved in to create air defense bubbles around the Ukrainian advance. And then you have fairly effective mechanized formations moving forward at a fairly steady pace.”
Kyiv’s allies in the past have been wary of Ukrainian incursions in Russia, fearing that it could escalate the war. But there have been no public indications from Western capitals that they oppose the assault.
“Some did not notice. Others do not care. Most quietly approve,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top presidential adviser, wrote on social media on Thursday evening, referring to the international response.
Now, a significant part of the world considers Russia “a legitimate target for any operations and types of weapons,” he added.
Mr. Gady and other experts said the main question now was whether Ukraine can maintain the momentum and turn the success on Russian territory into useful gains. The Ukrainian Army has few reserves it can pour into the fight, and it continues to suffer from shortages of weapons and ammunition, analysts say.
It also remains unclear what Ukraine ultimately hopes to accomplish. A senior Ukrainian official who spoke the on condition of anonymity to discuss the operation said the goal was to draw Russian troops away from other parts of the front line where Ukrainian units are struggling. But military experts said that Russia would likely be able to respond with reserves who were not fighting in Ukraine.
“Does it really solve any of the larger military strategic problems that the other parts of the front line are suffering from?” Mr. Gady asked.
A map of the battlefield by the Black Bird Group, a Finland-based organization that analyzes images from the battlefield, shows that Ukrainian troops have gained about 100 square miles of Russian territory since the beginning of the attack, although it remains unclear whether they have secured control of all of it. They have advanced past two lines of Russian defenses.
In particular, the Ukrainian army has closed in on Sudzha, a small town of about 6,000 people six miles from the Ukrainian-Russian border.
Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst from the Black Bird Group, wrote on social media that some Ukrainian units appeared to be conducting probing raids further north in the direction 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 on Friday morning and verified by The New York Times showed a column of destroyed Russian military vehicles just east of Rylsk, a town west of the border area captured by Ukraine.
It remains to be seen whether Ukraine will try to push further into Russian territory to solidify control over the area it has captured, or retreat after a few days, as has happened in previous, smaller-scale cross-border raids.
Mr. Kastehelmi said Ukraine could not continue further north without widening its flanks and exposing itself to Russian counterattacks. “Time is also running against Ukrainians,” he wrote. “Russians won’t be disorganized forever.”
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people. More about Constant Méheut
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