The Ukrainian military says Russia has moved some troops from the occupied south, but this does not constitute a major redeployment.
Russian authorities have evacuated thousands of civilians from the Kursk region as Ukrainian forces advance after a surprise incursion aimed at forcing Moscow to slow its advance along the rest of the front lines.
The Glushkovo area, with a population of 20,000 and located 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the front, was evacuated on Thursday, acting Kursk governor Alexei Smirnov said.
Russian officials said at least 200,000 people have been evacuated so far from border areas.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Thursday its forces shot down Ukrainian drones over the neighboring Belgorod region, and Sukhoi-34 bombers struck Ukrainian positions in Kursk.
The ministry added that its forces had taken up better positions at several points to combat what Ukraine described as the creation of a buffer zone to protect its population from attacks.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 29 Russian-launched drones overnight, while the Russian military said it had deployed fighter jets to the western border.
Ukraine’s political goal is to demonstrate to its Western allies that Ukraine “still has the strength to fight for its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Natia Siscoria, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Al Jazeera.
“The Ukrainians have been very clear in identifying and highlighting that this is not an incursion aimed at occupying Russian territory but rather self-defense measures,” Siscoria said.
Reporting from the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, Al Jazeera correspondent Alex Gatopoulos said the presence of Ukrainian forces in Kursk has made Russian President Vladimir Putin look weak, with some Russians describing the incursion as an intelligence failure and questioning security.
Putin has ordered huge financial incentives for any conscript who joins the army, such as “bonuses, large down payments, and preferential mortgages. The real motivation is to boost recruitment and secure the troops.” [to Kursk] “Russia must take immediate and rapid steps,” Gatopoulos said, adding that Ukraine’s task of administering the territory it has seized could be a major headache for the military in the future.
Ukrainian military spokesman Dmytro Likhovy said Russia had moved some troops from occupied southern Ukraine to other areas, but that this did not constitute a major redeployment at the moment.
“No significant changes in the size of the group have been observed, and the number of personnel does not change enough to indicate any differences or weakness in … hostilities,” Likhov said on national television.
Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, has been slowly advancing for most of the year along a 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front in Ukraine and controls 18 percent of Ukraine. The Ukrainian incursion into Russia has produced its biggest battlefield gains since 2022.