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Ukrainian police said they were evacuating people in anticipation of retaliation, but the purpose of the army’s operation on Russian territory remained unclear.
By Constant Méheut
Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine
Ukrainian forces pushed deeper into Russia on Friday, seeking to capitalize on their wonderful cross-border offensive, as Moscow temporarily moved to bolster its defenses against the biggest attack on Russian soil since the war began.
After capturing several small settlements in recent days, Ukraine was forced to take the city near the border and sent small groups to carry out additional raids in the Kursk region of southwestern Russia.
At the same time, the Russian army announced that it was sending more troops and armored vehicles to try to repel the attack. Russian television broadcast videos of columns of army trucks armed with artillery, heavy guns and tanks.
Perhaps preparing for retaliation, the Ukrainian government announced Friday that it was evacuating another 20,000 people from the Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk.
This whirlwind of movement underscored how the Ukrainian attack had brought a new and unpredictable detail to a war that was progressing in slow motion elsewhere on the front line. Ukraine’s successes so far may provide much-needed spice to a country whose forces have been wasting ground for many months while also putting Russian civilians in the war more seriously.
But military analysts question whether the operation is worth the risk, given that Ukrainian forces are already under pressure. It is also unclear whether the project will help Ukraine improve its position on the rest of the battlefield by forcing Russia to divert its troops from elsewhere to reinforce the border region.
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