President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had launched an incursion into Russian territory to “restore justice” and put pressure on Moscow’s forces, confirming for the first time Kyiv’s surprise offensive in the western Kursk region.

On Sunday, Moscow’s forces were engaged in a sixth day of heavy fighting against Kiev’s largest incursion into Russian territory since the war began, which left southwestern parts of Russia unprotected before reinforcements arrived.

Russian authorities promptly evacuated residents and imposed sweeping security measures in three border regions on Saturday after the attack caught the Kremlin by surprise, according to military analysts. Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow, also sent more troops to its border with Ukraine and accused Kyiv of violating its airspace.

In his evening video address, Zelensky said he had discussed the operation with Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and promised to respond accordingly after Russia began its large-scale invasion of the neighboring country in February 2022.

“Today I received several reports from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi on the front lines and our measures to expand the war into the aggressor’s territory,” he said late Saturday.

“Ukraine is proving that it is indeed capable of restoring justice and is ensuring that exactly the pressure that is needed is applied: pressure on the aggressor.”

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday it had destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones and four Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles overnight over the Kursk region, as well as 18 drones over other Russian regions frequently attacked by Ukraine.

In a statement, she called the ground attack “barbaric” and said it made no military sense.

Russian authorities are evacuating parts of the Belgorod region due to “activities” of Ukrainian forces in the area, Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s southwestern region bordering Ukraine, said today.

Following the surprise attack on Kursk, Ukrainian forces have forced evacuations in the second Russian region.

Russian forces said they had repelled eleven drone attacks over the Kursk region.

Air defense units also destroyed five drones launched from Ukraine over the Belgorod region, the Defense Ministry said via the messaging app Telegram.

The Belgorod region borders on Ukraine and the Voronezh region in Russia, several hundred kilometers south of Moscow.

How serious President Zelensky is about his bold counteroffensive against Russia is not entirely clear, nor are many of the details of the operation. However, some important facts are emerging from the fog of war.

First, it is a far more ambitious and resourced incursion into genuine Russian territory than Ukraine has ever attempted before. Previous attacks on Russia itself have been largely damaging and propaganda-based. This time, the capture of a surprisingly large amount of Russian territory around Kursk – the advance is said to be 10 km deep – is a far more significant step, and goes far beyond its undoubtedly equal and opposite effects on Russian and Ukrainian morale respectively.

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A Ukrainian security official said the attack on Kursk was aimed at destabilizing Russia and that thousands of soldiers were involved in the operation.

The unnamed security official told AFP that the move would disperse Russian forces over a wide area or along a front, making it more difficult for them to maintain a concentrated and strong defense with light, quick attacks.

The official said thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were involved in the attack, after Russian officials suggested several hundred Ukrainian soldiers carried out the attack.

“We are on the offensive. Our goal is to stretch the enemy’s positions, inflict maximum losses and destabilize the situation in Russia, since Russia is unable to protect its own border,” the security official said.

Volodymyr Zelensky had previously addressed the attack directly, saying that Russia had carried out nearly 2,000 cross-border attacks on the Ukrainian city of Sumy and must respond.

“Artillery, mortars, drones. We are also seeing rocket attacks and each of these attacks deserves a fair response,” he said in his evening address.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk region met with Russia’s deputy defense minister on Sunday after hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers advanced into the border area, posing one of the biggest challenges to Putin’s forces since the war began.

Governor Alexei Smirnov met with Deputy Defense Minister Andrei Bulyga, who promised that additional troops and capabilities were on the way to Kursk and the army was doing everything necessary to ensure the safety of the civilian population, Tass reported.

“Yes, the situation remains difficult. But at the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry and all relevant authorities are taking comprehensive measures to stabilize the situation in the region,” Smirnov said.

Russia said more than 8,000 people had been evacuated from border areas and more than 6,000 had been housed in temporary accommodation centers.

Russia has evacuated over 76,000 people from the Kursk region as Ukrainian troops advance further into its territory.

Vladimir Putin was forced to request reserve troops to help in what Moscow calls an “anti-terrorist operation.”

At the same time, a state of emergency was declared at the federal level in Russia because of the invasion.

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The director of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has sharply criticized the “reckless attacks” on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear power plant after explosions occurred and a fire broke out at the plant.

The Director General of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi, said: “These reckless attacks endanger the nuclear safety of the plant and increase the risk of a nuclear accident. They must stop immediately.”

The regulator said the team had been informed that a suspected drone attack had taken place on one of the power plant’s cooling towers on Sunday.

However, there are no effects on nuclear safety, he said.

The IAEA Support and Assistance Mission in Zaporizhia (ISAMZ) has requested immediate access to the cooling tower to assess the damage.

Russian forces have started a fire at the site of the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

The radiation levels were normal, he said, but the fire was visible from Ukrainian-occupied territory.

A local official in the Ukrainian town of Nikopol said there were rumors that Russian forces had set fire to a large number of tires in the cooling towers, Reuters reported. Russia claimed the fire was sparked by nearby artillery fire.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia had launched nearly 2,000 cross-border attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region from the western Kursk region this summer, which he said deserved a “fair” Ukrainian response.

“Artillery, mortars, drones. We are also seeing missile attacks and each of these attacks deserves an appropriate response,” said the Ukrainian president in his evening address to the nation in the face of a Ukrainian border incursion into the Kursk region.