A state of emergency of a federal nature has been introduced in Russia's Belgorod Region, announced the Minister of Civil Defense, Emergency Situations and Liquidation of the Consequences of Natural Disasters Alexander Kurenkov. quoted by TASS.
„I propose to classify the emergency situation that occurred on the territory of the Belgorod region among the emergency situations of a federal nature and to establish a federal level of response,” he said.
Four Russian civilians were injured in Shebekino, Belgorod region, as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks, the governor of the region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, announced on the Telegram social network.
„The city of Shebekino was attacked by drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. "Four civilians were injured, including two paramedics from the Ambulance Service," he wrote.
The introduction of a state of emergency of a federal nature allows, under a simplified procedure, to make decisions on granting material assistance to people from the federal budget and to finance activities aimed at housing people.
Evacuation of residents of Glushkovsky district in Kursk region has also been announced. The acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, said the Glushkovsky district, with a population of 20,000, had been evacuated, Reuters reported. According to Russian data, at least 200,000 people have been evacuated from the border areas so far.
Evacuations and states of emergency are a consequence of the largest foreign attack on sovereign Russian territory since World War II, according to Reuters. It began on August 6, when thousands of Ukrainian soldiers broke through Russia's western border.
Backed by drones, heavy artillery and tanks, Ukrainian units are already fighting on a front about 18 km deep into Russian territory, according to Reuters.
Ukraine has said it is pushing deeper into the country to force Moscow to slow its advance along the rest of the front.
Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukrainian troops had advanced several kilometers and that the goal of replenishing the “exchange fund” of prisoners of war has been achieved. A Ukrainian government official told Reuters that Kiev was delineating a buffer zone to protect its population from attack.
Today, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that its forces had shot down Ukrainian drones over Russia's neighboring Belgorod region and that Su-34 warplanes had fired on Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
The Russian Defense Ministry also reported heavy fighting on the Ukrainian front and said that the country's troops had taken up better positions in several places.
While the Ukrainian attack has embarrassed Moscow, exposed the weakness of its border defenses and changed the public narrative of the war, Russian officials said what they described as a Ukrainian “invasion” would not change the course of the war, Reuters reported .
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. For most of that year has been advancing along a 1,000km front in Ukraine for most of the year and is vastly outnumbered. It controls 18% of the territory of Ukraine.
Ukraine's entry into Russia has brought it the greatest successes on the battlefield since 2022, the agency notes.