Grim-faced Vladimir Putin with his army chief Valery Gerasimov.

Vladimir Putin blamed the West for Ukraine’s invasion of Russia and promised to “drive out the enemy” in his first public comments since Kyiv’s attack last week.

At a terse security council meeting, Putin ordered his military chiefs to defeat the first invasion of Russia by a foreign power since the Second World War.

“The task before the ministry of defence is to squeeze out, drive the enemy out of our territories and, together with the border service, ensure reliable coverage of the state borders,” he said, reading from a pad of paper scrawled with handwritten notes.

On either side of the table were Putin’s most important generals and security officials, including Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top general; Viktor Zolotov, the head of Russia’s National Guard whose job it is to defend Putin;  and Alexander Bortnikov, head of the FSB security services.

They sat grim-faced and nodded sheepishly as Putin, hunched over his notebook and with his brow deeply furrowed, ordered the Russian army to eject the Ukrainian military.

“The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response, and all the goals facing us will, without a doubt, be achieved,” Putin said.

“It is clear now why the Kiyv regime rejected our proposals to return to a peace plan, as well as the proposals of interested and neutral mediators,” he added.

“The West is fighting us with the hands of Ukrainians.”

He went on: “Apparently, the enemy is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future.

“But what kind of negotiations? How do we even talk with people who indiscriminately strike at civilians, at civilian infrastructure and try to create threats to nuclear energy? What can we even talk about with them?”

John Foreman, a former British defence attache in Moscow, said that Putin looked unnerved at his security meeting.

“I’ve not seen Putin read his handwritten notes off a notepad in the last five years. Even when Prigozhin was marching on Moscow,” he said in a reference to a failed mutiny by Kremlin mercenaries last year. “He looks rattled.”

Shortly after the meeting, the governor of the Kursk region said that 180,000 people were now being evacuated from areas that border Ukraine and that Ukrainian soldiers now controlled 28 villages and towns.

The governor of the neighbouring Belgorod region also ordered people to leave border areas as panic spread that Ukraine was increasing the scope of its attack.

Analysts said that the Ukrainian attack, which has penetrated as far as 20 miles into Russia, had caught the Kremlin off guard and embarrassed Putin, who has built his 24-year presidency on promising ordinary Russians that he is the man to deliver security above all else.

Nigel Gould-Davies, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the Kremlin’s response had been “confused and improvised”.

“This is a mini-occupation,” he said. “Ukrainian soldiers have spent a week there. They’ve taken control of the Sudzha gas transit station, they are eating and sleeping and waking up in the morning on Russian territory.”

The Russian ministry of defence had said over the weekend that it was sending untested conscripts, mercenary units and tanks to the Kursk region but on Monday it ordered a “comprehensive” force to be built up for “combat operations”.

It has also been reported that Russian units have been diverted from the front line around Kharkiv in Ukraine to Kursk.

Mr Foreman, the former defence attache in Moscow, expected a heavy Russian response.

“I would expect the army to bring up weapons to pound the Ukrainians,” he said.

“The Russian air force will play its part, this sort of scenario is exactly what they trained for.”

A total of 11,000 people have been evacuated from Krasnaya Yaruga district in Russia’s Belgorod region, state news agency Tass reported on Monday.

‘It has been an alarming morning,” Viacheslav Gladkov said. “(There has been) enemy activity on the border of Krasnoyaruzhsky district.”

The regional official added Russian soldiers would be able to “cope with the threat that has arisen, but in order to protect the lives and health of our population, we are starting to move people who live in Krasnoyaruzhsky district to safer places”.

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Ukraine controls 1,000 sq km of Russia's Kursk region, top Ukrainian commander claims

Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised to drive Ukraine from Russian territories in a meeting with defence and security officials.

“Of course, the main task faces the Ministry of Defence - to squeeze out, drive the enemy out of our territories and, together with the border service, to ensure reliable cover of the state border" Putin said.

Putin also appeared to accuse Ukraine of carrying out war crimes, saying that the enemy was launching "indiscriminate strikes on civilians, on civilian infrastructure and nuclear facilities".

Ukraine controls around 1,000 square kilometres in Kursk, according to Ukraine's General Oleksandr Syrskyi who made the claim on Telegram.

The incursion, which began last week, was first acknowledged by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an address on Saturday night.

In his nightly address posted on social media, the leader acknowledged military actions trying to "push the war out into the aggressor's territory".

Zelenskyy also said he plans to draw up a "humanitarian plan" for the area, where around 76,000 residents have been evacuated since the fighting began.

The incursion appears to have caught Moscow off guard, as Russian military leaders are scrambling to contain Ukrainian troops.

Ukrainian military officials have yet to publish their exact aims of the operation, but military experts have suggested the aim is likely to draw Russian reserves away from fighting in the Donetsk region.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the incursion was made "with the sole purpose of intimidating the peaceful population of Russia”.

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Putin says Ukraine's attack on Russia is aimed at ceasefire negotiations

-President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Ukraine's biggest attack on Russian territory since the start of the war was aimed at improving Kyiv's negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks and at slowing the advance of Russian forces.

Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border last Tuesday and swept across some western parts of Russia's Kursk region, a surprise attack that laid bare the weakness of Russian border defences in the area.

Putin, in his most detailed public remarks on the incursion to date, said Ukraine "with the help of its Western masters" was trying to improve its position ahead of possible talks.

He questioned what negotiations there could be with an enemy he accused of firing indiscriminately at Russian civilians and nuclear facilities.

"The main task, of course, is for the defence ministry to squeeze out, to knock out the enemy from our territories," Putin said, adding that Russian forces were accelerating their advance along the rest of the 1,000-km (620-mile) main front.

"The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response," he said.

He also said he expected further Ukrainian attempts to destabilise Russia's western border.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the war was now coming back to Russia. He said that Ukraine's cross-border assault was a matter of security for Ukraine and that Kyiv had captured areas from where Russia launched strikes.

His top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Ukraine controlled 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian territory, far larger than the figures given by Russian officials.

The acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, said Ukraine controlled 28 settlements in the region, and the incursion was about 12 km deep and 40 km wide. Putin told Smirnov that the military would report on such things and advised him to focus on updating on the socio-economic situation.

In Kursk region alone, 121,000 people had already left or been evacuated and another 59,000 were in the process of being evacuated. In Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Kursk, thousands of civilians were also evacuated.

Ukrainian forces in Kursk were trying to encircle Sudzha, where Russian natural gas flows into Ukraine, while major battles were under way near Korenevo, about 22 km (14 miles) from the border, and Martynovka.

One Russian source with knowledge of official thinking said that by attacking Russia, Ukraine was emboldening Russian hardliners who argue that any ceasefire talks were a waste of time and that Russia should push much further into Ukraine.

CRUCIAL JUNCTURE

Russian officials say Ukraine is trying to show its Western backers that it can still muster major military operations just as pressure mounts on both Kyiv and Moscow to agree to talk about halting the war.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and now controls 18% of Ukrainian territory. Until the surprise attack on Russia, Ukraine had been losing territory to Russian forces despite hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. and European support aimed at stopping and even reversing the Russian advance.

After more than two years of the most intense land war in Europe since World War Two, both Moscow and Kyiv have indicated that they are pondering possible talks, though in public both are still far apart on what a ceasefire might look like.

Both also have an eye on the U.S. presidential election in November. Kyiv is concerned that U.S. support could weaken if Republican Donald Trump wins.

Trump has said he would end the war, and both Russia and Ukraine are keen to gain the strongest possible bargaining position on the battlefield.

Reuters reported in February that Putin's suggestion of a ceasefire in Ukraine to freeze the war was rejected by the United States. In June, Putin suggested possible terms including demands that Kyiv drop its NATO ambitions and withdraw all of its troops from four provinces claimed by Moscow.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, after talks with China, said last month that Kyiv was prepared for talks on the conflict with Russia provided Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity were fully respected.

Kyiv says it is the victim of an imperial-style land grab by Putin and says it must gain control over all the land it has lost to Russia. The West says it cannot allow Putin to win.

INTENSE FIGHTING

The Ukrainian incursion is embarrassing for Putin's top military brass, which has repeatedly been criticised inside Russia by nationalists for its prosecution of the war.

Former Ukrainian defence minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk told Reuters that the operation looked to be aimed at distracting Russian forces and its leadership from the eastern fronts.

To counter it, Russia has been forced to mobilise reserves and declare an anti-terrorist lockdown in Kursk and two other regions, Bryansk and Belgorod.

Putin said on Monday that, despite the attack, "our armed forces are moving forward along the entire line of contact".

The Russian defence ministry said later that Russian forces had taken control of the settlement of Lysychne in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify battlefield claims.

Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia's security council, said last week that Russia had taken 420 sq km of territory from Ukrainian forces since June 14.

Since the Aug. 6 border incursion into Kursk, the Russian rouble has weakened, losing 6% of its value against the U.S. dollar. Russia's Gazprom said it would send 39.6 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Monday.

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Zelenskiy says: Russia must be forced to make peace if Putin wants to fight

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had to be forced to make peace as President Vladimir Putin wanted to fight, and that war was coming back to Russia after Moscow had taken it to other countries.

The Ukrainian leader, speaking in his nightly address, said that Kyiv's major cross-border assault into the western region of Kursk was a matter of security for Ukraine and that Kyiv had captured areas from where Russia had launched strikes.

"Russia must be forced to make peace if Putin wants to fight so badly," Zelenskiy said.

He said Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, which lies across the border from Kursk region, had been attacked almost 2,100 times by Russian cross-border strikes since June 1.

"Russia brought war to others, now it's coming home. Ukraine has always wanted only peace, and we will certainly ensure peace," he said.

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