KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia on Saturday announced what it called a counterterrorism operation to increase security in the border region where an incursion this week by Ukrainian forces caught Russian troops off-guard and exposed its military vulnerabilities in the 2 1/2-year-old war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said fighting was continuing in the Kursk region and that the army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb that both causes a blast wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its targets.
The measures announced for Kursk and for the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine allow the government to relocate residents, control phone communications and requisition vehicles.
The raid that began on Tuesday is the largest cross-border foray of the war and raises concerns about fighting spreading well beyond Ukraine.
In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed but which has not sent its own army into Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday that its air defenses shot down unspecified objects launched from Ukraine that were flying over Belarusian territory.
“I do not understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to figure it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocations will not go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to state news agency Belta.
A Russian plane-launched missile slammed into a Ukrainian shopping mall on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 44 others, authorities said.
The mall in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, is located in the town’s residential area. Thick black smoke rose above it after the strike.
“This is another targeted attack on a crowded place, another act of terror by the Russians,” Donetsk regional head Vadym Filashkin said in a Telegram post.
It was the second major strike on the town in almost a year. Last September, a Russian missile hit an outdoor market there, killing 17.
July saw the heaviest civilian casualties in Ukraine since October 2022, the U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said Friday. Conflict-related violence killed at least 219 civilians and injured 1,018 over the month, the mission said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said reinforcements are being sent to Kursk to counter Ukraine’s raid, with Russia deploying multiple rocket launchers, towed artillery guns, tanks transported on trailers and heavy tracked vehicles.
The ministry reported fighting in the outskirts of Sudzha, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border. The town has an important pipeline transit hub for Russian natural gas exports to Europe.
There has been little reliable information on the daring Ukrainian operation and its strategic aims are unclear. Ukrainian officials have refused to comment on the incursion, which is taking place about 500 kilometers (320 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Asked about Ukraine’s incursion, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday the United States was “in touch with our Ukrainian counterparts” but that he would not comment until “those conversations are complete.”
“There’s been no changes in our policy approaches,” Kirby said when asked about U.S. policy on use of weapons. “They’re using it in an area where we had said before that they could use U.S. weapons for cross-border strikes. The end goal here is to help Ukraine defend itself.”
Mathieu Boulegue, a defense analyst at the Chatham House think tank in London, said the Ukrainians appear to have a clear goal, even if they’re not saying what it is.
“Such a coordinated ground force movement responds to a clear military objective,” Boulegue told The Associated Press. Also, the raid has spooked the Russian public and delivered a slap in the face to Russian President Vladimir Putin, offering Ukraine “a great PR coup,” he said.
The attack “is a massive symbol, a massive display of force (showing) that the war is not frozen,” he said.
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Heintz reported from Tallinn, Estonia