Ukraine has appointed a military commandant to administer the areas of Kursk it has seized from Russia, in a major humiliation for Vladimir Putin.
Kyiv’s incursion into Russian territory continues at pace, as a beleaguered Kremlin struggles to contain the Ukrainian surprise attack.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi, the head of Ukraine’s army, claimed his forces had now penetrated 35km (nearly 22 miles) inside Russia and controlled 1,150 square kilometres of territory.
He added that his forces were still advancing and had taken up to 1.5 km (0.93 miles) in the last 24 hours.
Syrski also announced that the army had established a military commandant’s office in the occupied territories, which will be headed up by Major General Eduard Moskalev.
“To maintain law and order and primarily ensure the needs of the population in the controlled territories, a military commandant’s office was created, and Major General Moskalev was appointed as its managing director,” he said.
Major General Moskalev was in charge of the 300th Tank Training Regiment of the 169th Training Centre of the Ukrainian Ground Forces in 2012.
Later between March 15 and June 20, 2022, he served as the Commander of the Joint Forces.
Since June 2022, Moskalev had been the commander of an operational and tactical group of troops on the eastern front. In 2023 he took over the Odesa operational-strategic group.
Russia has evacuated nearly 200,000 people since Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on August 6.
However, many residents still remain in the region, with Ukraine promising to provide them with the necessary humanitarian assistance.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a post to Telegram that Kyiv is working with the military on a possible route for civilians to leave Kursk for Sumy in Ukraine.
Civilians could also leave for other regions in Russia. However no official request had been received from the Kremlin to provide a safe corridor for those wishing to stay in Russia.
Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelensky, said Ukraine had no interest in occupying the seized territories and claimed the incursion was an attempt to create a security zone to prevent further Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns.
“In the border regions of Russia, including Kursk region, Ukrainians deal exclusively with security-related tasks,” he said in a post on X social media.
“Ukraine is not interested in occupying these territories. But it is interested in the actual destruction of many Russian military facilities, pushing the remnants of Russian troops beyond the lines that allow for artillery and ballistic missile strikes on Ukrainian territory, forming a security belt around Ukraine’s borders, and destroying military logistics and infrastructure (including storage bases, training centres, and places where equipment is concentrated).
“Ukraine and Russia are waging different wars, which have clear legal definitions. While Russia deliberately attacked Ukraine to kill civilians and occupy its territory, which is an unconditional war crime, Ukraine is waging an exclusively defensive war, including on the aggressor’s territory to ensure the protection of its own population, which is its unconditional right.”