On August 12, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Ukrainian troops are operating in Russia’s Kursk region, six days after an August 6 cross-border attack that took the Kremlin by surprise.
The commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksandr Syrskyi reported to Zelenskyy Ukraine now controls 386 square miles of Russian territory in the region.
The Kremlin conceded on August 11, a thousand-strong Ukrainian force had advanced up to 30 kilometers within Russian territory.
On August 12, acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said Ukrainian forces controlled 28 settlements.
Unconfirmed reports suggest Ukrainian forces may have also entered Russia’s Belogord region.
Moscow is framing Ukrainian operations as “terrorist attacks,” announcing a counterterrorism operation led by Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service in its Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions.
The Kremlin claimed Kyiv’s advance into the Russian territory was a “violation of international law” backed by the U.S.
Russian Ambassador Anatoly Antonov said, “Russian borders are sacred,” denying Ukraine’s right to self-defense, and blaming the U.S. for the deaths of “ordinary Russians.”
“The Ukrainian actions are an evident terrorist action,” said Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. “No one hides the fact that American weapons have become a murder weapon of ordinary Russians. Attacks on schools, hospitals, ambulances and residential buildings in Russia cannot be recognized as a right of self-defense.”
That is false.
The United Nations General Assembly resolution in March 2022 condemned “in the strongest words possible” Russia’s “aggression against Ukraine” and demanded that Moscow halt “its unlawful use of force against Ukraine.”
Later that month, the U.N.’s top court rejected Russia’s pretext for invading Ukraine, and likewise called on Russia “to immediately halt all military actions in Ukraine.”
Russia ignored international demands, carrying on with its war that inflicted devastation and profound human suffering in Ukraine and elevated security risks in Europe.
The United Nations Charter guarantees Ukraine’s “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense,” in Article 51 Part 7.
Russia systematically targets Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure with missile strikes, killing and injuring thousands of civilians. Intentional attacks on civilians, and indiscriminate attacks on civilian populations, are war crimes.
The United Nations said July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since the invasion of February 2022.
“Coordinated attacks launched by the Russian armed forces across Ukraine,” killed more than 200 and injured more than 1,000 in July alone, the UN reported.
Many of those strikes come from the Kursk and Belgorod regions, Zelenskyy said.
On August 9, a Russian missile hit a shopping mall in a residential area in Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, killing 11 and injuring 44.
An overnight Russian airstrike outside of Kyiv on August 11 killed a 4-year-old boy and his father, Ukrainian officials said.
Experts on international law and Western officials widely agree that Ukraine has the right to strike military targets in Russia to thwart Russian aggression.
The U.S. said on August 8 that Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons in its Kursk operations is “consistent with our policy.”
Since Ukraine’s incursion, Kursk governor Smirnov said 121,000 people have evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine in the region, and authorities intended to evacuate 180,000 in total.
But local residents complained authorities failed to execute an organized evacuation, prompting many to flee on their own.
Other people remained in their homes as fighting raged around them.
Speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 12, Smirnov said 12 civilians had died and 121 others been injured since August 6.
There is no indication Ukraine is using disproportionate force or intentionally targeting civilians.
International law recognizes that civilians and civilian structures may be subject to unintentional harm during military operations, although that harm must be limited.
In line with the Geneva Conventions, attacks that “may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited.”
On August 11, an anonymous Ukrainian security official told Agence France-Presse that Ukraine will “strictly observe humanitarian law” during its Kursk incursion, in contrast to Russian actions in Ukraine.
