Russians FLEE as Ukraine presses on with cross-border offensive

Ukraine this morning pressed on with a major cross-border incursion into Russia, launching a devastating missile strike on a column of Moscow‘s troops that is feared to have killed hundreds of soldiers.

The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region over the past few days appears to be the most significant attack on Russian soil since the war in Ukraine began in 2022 and has prompted thousands of Russians to flee their homes. 

Kyiv‘s forces staged an overnight missile attack on a column of Russian troops trundling through the Rylsky district of Kursk, where a series of powerful explosions sparked more blazes and spewed debris over a nearby highway.

The Russian units are said to have sustained hundreds of casualties in the strike as macabre images, snapped by shocked passers-by, showed military vehicles lying charred and twisted in the dirt. 

That strike came as a precision drone assault triggered another salvo of huge blasts at Lipetsk airfield that whipped up a terrifying inferno and caused the evacuation of hundreds of nearby residents. 

Kyiv has not officially taken responsibility for the operation, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Thursday that Russia needed to ‘feel’ the consequences of its invasion. 

‘Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,’ Zelensky said, without directly referring to the offensive.

The consequences of the missile strike on Russian troops near the village of Oktyabrskoye in Rylsky, roughly 25 miles from the border with Ukraine, are yet to be fully established. 

But more than a dozen armoured vehicles and trucks were said to be carrying hundreds of soldiers when the missiles struck. 

The huge blow enraged pro-war military channels in Russia who claimed it showed the sheer incompetence of their own military commanders.

Respected warblogging channel Military Informer, with 607,000 followers, declared: ‘In order to hit a convoy with [missiles] aimed at a considerable distance and corrected by satellite navigation, it is necessary that this very convoy, like a herd of stupid sheep, stood in the open and did not move anywhere until a reconnaissance drone found it, transmitted information and worked on it.

‘Not only that, but they left people sitting in the backs of the trucks, which turned the destruction of the convoy into a natural massacre.

‘Passing locals have already filmed everything, as the consequences were left standing until morning.

‘All this is a consequence not only of the impenetrable stupidity of a particular [commander] who organised the movement of the column near the border for the third year and then its standing, but also of the general situation of chaotic pulling of reserves to the area of the rupture, for which they were not prepared at all.’

Separately, Ukraine hit a major Russia bomb store and military airfield in Lipetsk overnight.

Lipetsk city is about 210 miles from the Ukrainian border with Russia’s Kursk region, where pro-Kyiv forces have been waging their ground offensive.

The punishing strikes caused the Russian ammunition dumps to detonate, resulting in a massive blaze at the airfield and prompted authorities to evacuate hundreds of people from nearby towns.  

‘The entire airfield is on fire, look – what the **** is going on,’ one observer can be heard declaring on video that was circulated on the Telegram messaging app. 

Regional governor Igor Artamonov confirmed on Telegram at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT) that Lipetsk had ‘been subjected to a massive UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack’, later adding a local power facility was damaged.

In a subsequent message, Artamonov urged residents to ignore calls on social media to leave Lipetsk – saying they were ‘spread by the enemy in order to sow panic’ – only to reverse course less than an hour later.

‘To eliminate the consequences of the detonation of explosive objects, a state of emergency is introduced in Lipetsk municipal district,’ he said in a post at around 4:00 am, listing evacuation orders for four settlements on the outskirts of Lipetsk city.

‘Temporary accommodation points and transport are being prepared.’

Artamonov said preliminary reports suggested at least six people had been wounded as a result of the attack.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces shot down 75 Ukrainian drones overnight including 26 in the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, 19 over Lipetsk, seven over Kursk, and 13 over the annexed Crimean peninsula and surrounding Black Sea.

Seven nautical drones headed for Crimea were also destroyed, it added.

But the independent US-based Institute for the Study of War said Ukraine had made significant territorial gains since the push began on Tuesday.

‘Geolocated footage and Russian claims indicate that Ukrainian forces continued rapid advances further into Kursk Oblast on August 8, and Ukrainian forces are reportedly present in areas as far as 35 kilometers from the international border with Sumy Oblast’ in Ukraine, the institute said in its daily campaign assessment.

It cautioned, however, that Ukrainian forces ‘most certainly do not control’ all of that territory.

Zelensky has not commented in detail on the Kursk invasion but said late on Thursday that Russia must feel the consequences of the fighting.

‘The more pressure is put on Russia, the closer peace will be,’ he said.

Russia’s defence ministry said Thursday that its troops were ‘continuing to destroy’ armed Ukrainian units and were using air strikes, rocket and artillery fire to try to push them back.

It said it had rushed in reserves and was ‘thwarting attempts to break through’ deeper into Kursk.

But Russian state TV reporter Aleksandr Sladkov said Ukraine had ‘partial or full control of 11 settlements in the Sudzhansky district’.

There was undisguised fury from residents of the district around the border town Sudzha, some of whom made a video appeal to Russian President Vladimir Putin angrily attacking his military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov for ‘lying’ in claiming that the Ukrainian advance had been halted.

‘Foreign troops with NATO equipment entered our land,’ they complained, upset that they are facing the same foreign occupation that Putin has inflicted on large regions of Ukraine.

‘In a few hours our town was turned into ruins. We lost our land, our homes. We fled under shelling.’

‘We want to appeal to you. We want to ask for help,’ said their spokeswoman.

‘We are alone. Our children are afraid to sleep at night… Recently, the Chief of General Staff [General Valery Gerasimov] told you that the situation is under control.

‘This is a lie. This lie allows civilians to die.

‘Today there is huge heavy fighting in Sudzha district, Gornev district. We have no evacuation of Sudzha district. Help us!’

Putin has called the incursion a ‘large-scale provocation’ by Kyiv.

The US State Department meanwhile has expressed support for Kyiv without directly commenting on the operation.