▲ Residents take refuge in a basement in Sudzha, Kursk region, Russia.Photo Ap
AFP, Europa Press and Reuters
The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, August 17, 2024, p. 24
kyiv. Ukraine said yesterday that one of the main objectives of the ground offensive it has been carrying out for 10 days in the Russian region of Kursk is to force Moscow to enter into negotiations fair that can put an end to almost two and a half years of war.
The military tool is used objectively to persuade Russia to enter into a negotiation processMikhail Podoliak, advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said yesterday on the social network X.
Although he reiterated that kyiv has no intention of occupy part of Russian territory, Podoliak noted that in case of possible negotiationsa way had to be found to get Russia involved.
At least 12 civilians have been killed and 121 wounded in the first days of the Ukrainian offensive, according to Russian authorities, who have not updated the toll since Monday, while in the city of Kursk, far from the fighting, dozens of people have been crowded into a temporary accommodation centre since the day before yesterday after hastily abandoning their homes.
We don’t know what to do. We cry day and night.”Zinaida Tarasiuk, a 70-year-old pensioner, told the AFP news agency.
kyiv said it controls 1,150 square kilometers and 82 Russian towns, including Sudzha, 10 kilometers from the border and a key point for sending gas to European Union countries via Ukraine. The offensive, which began on August 6, is the largest incursion by a foreign army on Russian soil since the end of World War II.
Moscow, for its part, claimed yesterday the capture of another town, Serguiivka, some 15 kilometres from Pokrovsk, a logistical hub on the route to the bastions of Chasiv Yar and Kostantinovka.
The Ukrainian incursion has already forced the evacuation of more than 120,000 people, 75 percent of whom are children – displaced to safer areas.
We are working with the regional government to determine which settlements and number of people should be evacuated.Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko told local television.
Most residents of the Sumi area understand why the evacuation and security measures taken by the authoritieshe stressed.
kyiv has set up storage facilities in its northern Sumi region to store and send humanitarian aid to Russian civilians in the part of Russia’s western Kursk region that it already controls, Klimenko said yesterday.
The citizens abandoned by Russia are mostly elderly people, people with disabilities and families with children. They need food, water and medicine.the minister explained on Telegram.
While it did not specify how many of the warehouses were set up, or where they are located, a video on the ministry’s Telegram account showed a large inflatable tent and Ukrainian servicemen loading packages and packing food for distribution.
At least 11 civilians were injured yesterday in Ukrainian attacks on the city of Donetsk, capital of the Russian republic of the same name, which caused a shopping centre to burn down and a hospital to be damaged.