Aug. 16 (UPI) — President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces have captured the town of Sudzha as they continue their incursion into Russian territory.
The Kyiv military has for a week now been pushing a ground invasion into Russia’s western Kursk Oblast that shares a border with Ukraine and where Russian officials have declared a state of emergency and evacuated thousands of residents in response.
Zelensky announced in his Thursday night address that they had taken the village, which had a pre-war population of some 5,000, and were in the process of establishing an operation center in the town.
He added that Ukrainian troops were in control of more than 80 other settlements in the oblast, which is the Russian equivalent to a provice.
Sudzha is located about 6 miles from the Ukrainian border, and Commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram that the military commandant’s office was created “to ensure law and order as well as all the needs of the local population.”
Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces had captured more than 100 Russian soldiers as well as shot down a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter jet in their roughly 1-mile advance into Kursk over Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, he said they had advanced in total about 22 miles into Kursk and were in control of 444-square miles.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, the Ukrainian forces do not control all of the territory within its claimed advances “but the creation of the commandant’s office will likely allow Ukrainian forces to coordinate military actions in the area that falls under maximal Ukrainian claims and safeguard the civilian population.”
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have recaptured Krupets, which was among the first settlements in Kursk taken by Kyiv.