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Acting governor of Russia's Kursk region Alexei Smirnov said during a video conference with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday that about 133,000 people have been displaced from their homes so far due to the Ukrainian offensive in the region.
About 20,000 people remain in the eight areas ordered to evacuate, Smirnov was quoted as saying by the state news agency TASS.
“I urge you to pay special attention to preparations for the new school year,” Putin, who was holding a meeting in Moscow on the situation in Kursk, ordered.
Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said pupils from 114 schools in the border region should receive their education online from September 2. Others will be taught at their evacuation sites or in children's holiday camps.
Putin's reaction to the incursion
After the Ukrainian advance began on August 6, Putin ordered his security forces to expel Ukrainians from Russia. But the Russian response has been slow to materialize.
Observers said the plans to open schools in September could be seen as evidence that the Russian leadership does not expect a quick victory over Ukrainian forces.
The Russian news website Meduza, citing sources close to the Kremlin, reported that Moscow was less concerned about a quick recovery: after the initial shock, it was important for the Russian people to get used to what officials called the “new normal”—the presence of foreign attacking forces, which would inevitably be expelled again, Meduza said.
Russian officials said Thursday that reinforced concrete structures are being installed at bus stations in the Kursk region to better protect citizens from shelling.
Governor Smirnov said on his Telegram channel that there are plans to reinforce 60 bus station shelters in Kursk city.
Similar structures will also be installed in two other towns within the region. Previously, bus stations in nearby border areas were fortified with sandbags and concrete blocks, officials said.
For the first time in nearly two and a half years of full-scale Russian warfare, Ukraine is fighting ground combat on enemy territory. The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrskyi, recently announced that more than 1,260 square kilometers and 93 villages had been captured, but military observers consider the area actually controlled by Ukraine to be somewhat smaller.
Putin accuses Ukraine of trying to launch a nuclear attack without evidence
Putin accused Ukraine on Thursday of trying to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant, without providing evidence.
“The enemy tried to carry out strikes on the nuclear power plant today,” Putin said in Moscow, according to TASS.
The nuclear power plant in the town of Kurchatov is located about 30 kilometers from the furthest Ukrainian advance.
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said in a statement that the agency had been informed of the matter.
He said he would visit the site next week to assess the situation.
“Military activity in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant poses a serious threat to nuclear safety and security,” he added.
After the Ukrainian advance began, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that the safety of nuclear power plants must not be jeopardized. It said the same applies to Kursk as it does to the Russian-occupied Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhia.
Fire engulfs ferry in Krasnodar, Russia
A fire broke out on a ferry loaded with fuel tanks at a port in Russia's southern Krasnodar region as a result of Ukrainian shelling, Russia's Interfax news agency reported on Thursday.
The district administration said a total of 30 fuel tanks were on board the railway ferry.
“At this stage, 17 crew members have already been rescued,” Krasnodar Region Governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on his Telegram channel, adding that the search for two missing people was continuing.
The Kavkaz port is located in the Krasnodar region across from Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. There was a simultaneous missile alert in Crimea.
Russian forces advance towards Toretsk
The Ukrainian military admitted on Thursday that the small town of New York had fallen to Russian forces in the east, while the besieged town of Toretsk was now under greater threat.
New York's position changed in a situation report issued Thursday by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The city is no longer referred to as a disputed territory, a clear acknowledgement that it has fallen to Russia's advance in Ukraine's Donetsk region.
Ukrainian war bloggers and Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said on Wednesday that Russian forces were in full control of New York.
The industrial city of Toretsk, long a target of fierce Russian attacks, is now at even greater risk.
The Ukrainian General Staff said fighting was continuing in Pevneshny and Zalizny, two towns east of Toretsk, as well as in the town itself.
Drone attack causes fire at Russian military base
A Ukrainian drone attack overnight caused a fire at a military base, the governor of a Ukrainian region in southern Russia said on Thursday.
Volgograd region governor Andrei Bocharov said air defenses repelled most of the drones but one downed drone crashed and started a fire.
In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said 28 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight, 13 of them over the Volgograd region alone.
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