Approximately 133,000 people have left their homes so far due to the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, the acting governor of the region, Alexei Smirnov, said during a videoconference with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday.
Nearly 20,000 people still remain in the eight districts for which evacuation had been ordered, the state news agency TASS reported, citing Smirnov.
“I urge you to pay particular attention to preparations for the new school year,” Putin, who was holding a meeting on the Kursk situation in Moscow, ordered.
Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said that pupils from 114 schools in the border area should be taught online from September 2. Others would be educated at their evacuation locations or in children’s holiday camps.
Putin’s reaction to incursion
After the Ukrainian advance that started on August 6, Putin ordered his security forces to expel the Ukrainians from Russia. However, the Russian counteraction is only slowly getting under way.
The plans for schools starting in September can be seen as evidence that the Russian leadership does not expect a quick victory over the Ukrainian troops, observers have said.
The online Russian-exile news site Meduza reported, citing sources close to the Kremlin, that Moscow is less concerned about a rapid recapture: After the initial shock, it was important to get the Russian population accustomed to what officials called a “new normal,” the presence of attacking foreign troops, who would inevitably be driven out once again, Meduza said.
Russian officials reported on Thursday that reinforced concrete structures are being installed at bus stops in the Kursk region to provide citizens with better protection from the shelling.
Governor Smirnov said on his Telegram channel that there are plans to reinforce 60 bus-stop shelters in the city of Kursk.
Similar structures will also be installed in two other towns within the region. Previously, bus stops in nearby border areas had been fortified with sandbags and concrete blocks, officials said.
For the first time in almost two and a half years of the full-scale Russian war, Ukraine is conducting ground battles on enemy territory. Recently, the Ukrainian army’s commander-in-chief, Olexander Syrskyi, stated that more than 1,260 square kilometres and 93 villages had been captured, but military observers consider the area actually controlled by Ukraine to be somewhat smaller.
Putin accuses Ukraine of attempted nuclear attack without evidence
Putin accused Ukraine on Thursday of attempting an attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant, without providing evidence.
“The enemy attempted to carry out strikes at the nuclear power plant today,” Putin said in Moscow, according to TASS. Putin added that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had been informed and was preparing a mission to Kursk.
The nuclear power plant in the town of Kurchatov is around 30 kilometres away from the furthest Ukrainian advance.
A spokesman for Rafael Grossi, the IAEA director general, has confirmed a planned visit to the Kursk nuclear power plant next week.
After the Ukrainian advance began, the IAEA warned that the safety of nuclear power plants must not be jeopardized. The same applies to Kursk as to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhya, it said.
Russian forces press toward Toretsk
The Ukrainian military appeared to acknowledge on Thursday that the small town of Niu-York has fallen to Russia’s advance in the east, as the embattled town of Toretsk now comes under greater threat.
Niu-York’s status changed in the Thursday situation report issued by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The town was no longer referred to as contested, an apparent acknowledgement that it has fallen to Russia’s advance in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Ukrainian war bloggers and Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov said on Wednesday that Russian forces were in complete control of Niu-York.
The industrial town of Toretsk, which has long been the target of fierce Russian attacks, is now at even greater risk.
The Ukrainian general staff said that fighting was continuing in Pivnichne and Zalizne, two towns to the east of Toretsk, and also in the town itself.
Drone attack causes fire at Russian military base
An overnight Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire to erupt at a military base in southern Russia, the regional governor said on Thursday.
Andrey Bocharov, the governor of the Volgograd region, said air defences had repelled most of the unmanned aircraft but that a downed drone had crashed and sparked the blaze.
The governor said that the premises of a military site were hit, without offering further details.
Russian war bloggers said the target was the Marinovka Air Base, located about 45 kilometres from the regional capital Volgograd.
In Moscow, the Russian Defence Ministry said that 28 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted overnight, 13 of which were over the Volgograd region alone.
