Russia evacuates second border region as Ukrainian invasion escalates

For a seventh day, Ukrainian forces are up to 20 miles inside Russian territory, the first incursion since the Second World War

Russia has evacuated a second border region as the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk enters a seventh day.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region announced on Monday that residents of Krasnaya Yaruga district, located on the frontier with Ukraine, would be evacuated due to Ukrainian military activity in the area.
Belgorod neighbours the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces broke into Russia in a major incursion that started last Tuesday.
Tass, Russia’s state news agency, reported on Monday that 11,000 people had been evacuated. “It has been an alarming morning,” said Vyacheslav Gladkov, the Belgorod governor. “[There has been] enemy activity on the border of Krasnaya Yaruga district.”
Mr Gladkov said that Russian soldiers would be able to “cope with the threat that has arisen” but added: “In order to protect the lives and health of our population, we are starting to move people who live in Krasnaya Yaruga district to safer places.”
Russian sources said that Ukrainian troops launched an attack in the early hours of Monday on the Kolotilovka checkpoint, a border crossing between Belgorod and Ukraine’s Sumy region.
It was claimed that Ukrainian troops, using armoured vehicles, tanks and artillery, opened fire at the checkpoint.
Ukrainian reserves are waiting at the rear near the village of Pokrovka, prepared to join the fight as a second echelon force if a breakthrough is made.
“Apparently, the Ukrainian armed forces are not abandoning their plans to stretch our defensive lines, create the maximum number of points of tension and attempt to break through to the east with the aim of cutting off Belgorod from the north,” Rybar, the authoritative Russian military blogger, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The fighting in Kolotilovka is about 25 miles south of Sudzha, where Ukrainian forces have been advancing since last Tuesday as part of the surprise cross-border raid.
In recent days, Russia has been bringing in reserves in the hope of quashing the incursion, but on Sunday its military conceded that Ukraine had advanced 20 miles into Russian territory in some places.
The Institute for the Study War (ISW), the US-based think tank, said many of these Russian response forces had been hastily assembled and included units poorly prepared to stage a fight-back.
Battlefield footage geolocated by ISW analysts showed Ukrainian troops had made westward and northwestward gains, in areas where Russian sources had claimed the situation had been stabilised.
There have also been reports that Russia’s defence ministry has been using old footage of strikes against Ukrainian positions when it claims its forces are halting the incursion.
Over the weekend, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said the raid had been launched to “restore justice” and pressure Russian forces elsewhere along the 600 miles of the front line.
“Today, I received several reports from commander-in-chief Syrskyi regarding the front lines and our actions to push the war onto the aggressor’s territory,” he said.
“Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and is ensuring the exact kind of pressure that is needed – pressure on the aggressor.”