Ukraine pounded Russian regions with missiles and drones on Wednesday as Kyiv said it was advancing deeper in the biggest foreign incursion into Russia for decades, which the White House said posed a "real dilemma" for President Vladimir Putin.
Thousands of Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug. 6 into the Western Kursk region, in what Putin said was a major provocation aimed at gaining a stronger hand in possible future ceasefire talks.
In an embarrassment for Russia, Ukraine carved out a slice of Kursk, and though Putin said the army would push out the Ukrainian troops, intense battles have so far failed to expel them.
Russia said on Wednesday that it had destroyed 117 Ukrainian drones in Russia overnight, mostly in the Kursk, Voronezh and Belgorod and Nizhny Novgorod regions. It said missiles had also been shot down and showed Sukhoi Su-34 bombers pounding Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
Russian commanders had said that the front in Kursk had stabilized, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces were continuing to advance there and ordered his generals to develop the next "key steps" in the operation.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's border region of Belgorod, declared a region-wide state of emergency on Wednesday, citing continued attacks by Ukrainian forces.
"The situation in the Belgorod region continues to be extremely difficult and tense," Gladkov said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app.
Daily shelling by the Ukrainian armed forces had destroyed houses, killing and wounding civilians, he added.
Energy grid attacks in Ukraine
Meanwhile, within Ukraine, the military shot down 17 out of 23 Russia-launched drones during an overnight attack, the country's air force and local authorities said on Wednesday.
Russian forces also launched two Kh-59/69 guided missiles to attack Ukraine, the air force said.
Ukraine's national grid operator Ukrenergo said Russian drones had hit an energy facility overnight and caused temporary power cuts to consumers in parts of Chernihiv region.
WATCH l The theories as to why Ukraine launched a ground attack in Russia:
In the morning, Russian forces also attacked an energy facility in the southern region, Ukrenergo said, without offering details.
Russia renewed a campaign of aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities this spring. Kyiv says the attacks have knocked out half of its power-generating capacity, forcing it to introduce rolling blackouts.
Russia says energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and denies targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
The overnight attack also damaged infrastructure in the northern region of Zhytomyr with no casualties reported, according to local authorities.
The air force shot down one drone in the southern region of Mykolaiv, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said. The debris damaged two private residences with no casualties reported, he added.
Kyiv Gov. Ruslan Kravchenko said the debris from an attack caused a forest fire that has since been put out.
Risks for Ukraine
The Ukrainian attack on Russia, the biggest by a foreign force since the Second World War, has dramatically changed the narrative around the war. Russia had been advancing since the failure of Ukraine's 2023 counteroffensive to make any major gains against Moscow's forces.
The offensive brings risks for Kyiv: Ukraine may leave other parts of the front exposed by dedicating forces to fighting in Russian sovereign territory. Russia controls 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory and has been advancing in recent months.
Ukraine has claimed it controls at least 1,000 square kilometres of Russia, more than double what Moscow's figures indicate. Reuters was not able to independently verify the battlefield situation.
Russian officials say Ukraine is trying to show its Western backers that it can still muster major military operations just as pressure mounts on both Kyiv and Moscow to agree to talks about halting the war. Putin said this week that Ukraine "with the help of its Western masters" was aiming to improve Kyiv's negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks and to slow the advance of Russian forces.
By bringing the war to Russia, Ukraine has forced nearly 200,000 Russians to evacuate border regions.
