War in Ukraine: Progress in the Kursk region, Italian ambassador summoned by Moscow… an update on the situation

Ukraine says it has advanced in Russia's Kursk region

Ukraine said on Friday it was continuing its advance in Russia's border region of Kursk, where its forces are still on the offensive, ten days after launching a surprise attack there.

“The troops of the attack group (in the Kursk region, editor's note) are continuing the fight and have advanced in some sectors by one to three kilometers”, Ukrainian army commander Oleksandr Syrsky said at a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia to evacuate five Ukrainian border villages starting Monday

Russian authorities announced on Friday that they would evacuate and block access to five villages located very close to the Ukrainian border in the Belgorod region, which is neighboring the Kursk region, which is currently the target of a major offensive by the Ukrainian army.

"From August 19, we are blocking access to five localities, evacuating residents and helping to move property,", Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram, specifying that access to a sixth village will also be blocked. “temporarily” banned.

Ukraine sends humanitarian aid to Kursk

Ukraine has set up storage facilities in the Sumy region to store humanitarian aid for Russian civilians remaining in the Kiev-controlled part of the Kursk region, the interior minister said on Friday.

Kiev claims to have taken control of 82 settlements across 1,150 square kilometers in the region since its cross-border attack began on August 6. “The citizens abandoned by Russia are mainly elderly people, disabled people and families with children. They need food, water and medicine,”, Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

He did not specify how many storage facilities had been set up or where they were, but a video posted on the ministry's Telegram account showed a large tent and Ukrainian servicemen carrying parcels and packing food.

Klymenko said during a visit to the Sumy region, which borders Russia's Kursk region, that about 150 food parcels had been sent to Russian civilians. Ukraine has said it plans to create a “buffer zone” in the Kursk region and open access to it for international humanitarian missions. Russia has called the Ukrainian incursion a “major provocation” and vowed to retaliate with a “true response”.