Zelenskiy defiant after Russia retakes swathe of Kursk villages from Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine’s military incursion into Russia is still going to “plan” after Russian troops recaptured a swathe of villages in the Kursk region, dealing a significant blow to Kyiv.

The Ukrainian president acknowledged the Kremlin had begun a counteroffensive, following Ukraine’s surprise cross-border attack last month into Russia. He said his armed forces had anticipated Moscow’s latest assault.

A mechanised raid began on Tuesday, according to Russian military bloggers. Russian forces rapidly pushed forward from the village of Korenevo and quickly advanced south into Snagost.

They have regained at least 10 settlements with two more – Krasnooktyabrskoe and Komarovka – reportedly having been captured on Thursday. One objective was to “bisect” Ukraine’s 1,000 sq km salient within Russia, cutting off its western flank, observers posited.

The next step would be “a more organised and well-equipped effort to push Ukrainian forces” out of Russia completely, the Institute for the Study of War thinktank said. It acknowledged the situation was fluid, with the size and scale of the counteroffensive unclear.

Zelenskiy told a news conference in Kyiv with the Lithuanian president Gitanas Nausėda: “The Russians have begun counteroffensive actions. It is going according to our Ukrainian plan.”

Russia’s Kursk advance comes at a time when its troops are making rapid gains in the eastern Donetsk region. They reportedly captured another village on the outskirts of Pokrovsk – a key Ukrainian logistics hub – and were only 8km (5 miles) from the city.

A Russian missile demolished a road bridge connecting Pokrovsk with the neighbouring town of Mrynohrad and the water supply was knocked out. Officials described the situation as very difficult in the area, where thousands of civilians remain despite bombardment.

Donetsk’s regional governor, Vadym Filashkin, said conditions in and around Pokrovsk would not improve. “I again call on you to evacuate!” he posted on the Telegram messaging app.

In the same province, three Ukrainian employees working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were killed and two injured when an artillery round hit their lorry in the village of Virolyubivka.

The ICRC’s president, Mirjana Spoljaric Egger, said her staff had been distributing wood and coal briquettes to vulnerable households ahead of winter. “I condemn attacks on Red Cross personnel in the strongest terms. It’s unconscionable that shelling would hit an aid distribution site,” she said.

Elsewhere, a Russian missile hit an Egypt-bound cargo ship carrying wheat in the Black Sea. There were no casualties. Ukraine last year resumed the export of grain from the port of Odesa after driving out Russia’s naval fleet.

On Friday the US president, Joe Biden, will discuss the deteriorating military and humanitarian situation in Ukraine with the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, who is paying a brief visit to Washington. The meeting comes after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, travelled together to Kyiv and held talks with Zelenskiy.

Speaking at a press conference afterwards, Blinken gave his strongest hint yet that the US will soon lift some restrictions on the use of US-supplied long-range weapons on key military targets within Russia. British government sources say approval will be given to allow similar strikes with UK Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

In Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, claimed a US-UK decision on targeting Russian territory “was taken long ago”. He said Russian forces were successfully pushing the Ukrainian military out of the Kursk area.

Early on Thursday Russia launched another large-scale drone and missile attack, with air raids sounding across much of Ukraine. The city of Konotop, a rail hub in Sumy region that Kyiv used as a staging ground for its Kursk incursion, reported heavy damage.

Local officials said at least 14 people had been hurt. Rescuers were working to restore power in the town, which had a pre-war population of about 83,000. Regional officials said there were 10 explosions during the attack and the mayor, Artem Semenikhin, said the power system was in critical condition.

“At the moment, energy workers are doing everything they can to provide electricity to the hospital and the water supply system,” he said.