The head of Russia’s Kursk border region on Wednesday announced a state of emergency amid an ongoing Ukrainian cross-border incursion launched some 36 hours ago.

At least five civilians have been killed and 31 wounded — six of them children — since the incursion began, Russian health officials said Wednesday.

Witnesses interviewed on Russian television said they had fled border areas in cars under drone fire.

“To eliminate the consequences of enemy forces coming into the region, I took the decision to introduce a state of emergency in the Kursk region from 7 August,” Governor Alexei Smirnov said in a post on Telegram.

After two days of fighting, the extent of the damage and the depth of the Ukrainian advance was unclear — though several reports from Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers suggested the fighters had gained several kilometres.

President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine had indiscriminately attacked civilian buildings and ambulances while Russia’s top general vowed to crush the incursion.

“The Kyiv regime has undertaken another large-scale provocation,” Putin said in a televised meeting with government officials.

US Wants To Know Ukraine’s Objectives

The White House said Wednesday it was contacting key US ally Ukraine to learn more about the “objectives” of Kyiv’s most serious cross-border incursion into Russian territory in months.

“We’re going to reach out to the Ukrainian military to learn more about their objectives,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about the operation.

Washington supported “common sense” actions by Ukraine to stop attacks by Russian forces, Jean-Pierre added.

President Joe Biden in May allowed Kyiv to use American-supplied weapons against targets just across the Russian border to repel Moscow’s push on the Kharkiv region.

But White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said separately that “nothing had changed” about the US policy discouraging broader strikes or attacks inside Russia.

Thousands of civilians on both sides of the border have been evacuated after Ukraine launched the cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, now in its second day.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller dismissed Moscow’s condemnations of the Ukrainian attack.

“I have seen the statements from the Russian government. It is a little bit rich, them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he told a briefing.

– ‘Not everyone can leave’ –

Authorities in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk, announced they were evacuating about 6,000 people.

Several thousand were also evacuated from the Kursk region.

Some Russian military bloggers were reporting that Ukrainian troops had reached the town of Sudzha, some eight kilometres (five miles) from the border, and were shelling it constantly.

The small town of about 5,000 people is home to the Sudzha metering station, the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas still heading to Europe via Ukraine.

A priest in the town, Evgeny Shestopalov, said in a video shared by Russian media that Sudzha was “on fire” and that residents unable to evacuate were sheltering at his church.

A local Russian TV station broadcast images from the city centre showing destroyed buildings, debris strewn across the street and large craters in the ground from artillery hits.

Russia’s National Guard said it was strengthening defences at the Kursk nuclear power station, some 60 kilometres from the border with Ukraine.

The Chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said up to 1,000 combatants from Ukraine had been involved in the offensive, and that Russian forces had stopped them penetrating deeper into the Kursk region.

“The operation will end with the enemy’s defeat and them being pushed back to the state border,” he told Putin in a televised meeting.

– ‘More pressure’ –

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incursion, the most serious cross-border attack in months.

President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday thanked Ukrainian troops for their “bravery” in an evening address published on social media.

“The more pressure we put on Russia… the closer we will get to peace. A just peace through just force,” he said, without making any specific reference to the fighting in Kursk.

A security source in Ukraine told AFP that Kyiv had struck a Russian helicopter using a drone on Tuesday over the Kursk region, but did not explicitly link it to the incursion.

Fighters from Ukraine have made several brief incursions into Russia before, some by units of Russians fighting in support of Kyiv — the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.

Putin in May launched a major new offensive into northeast Ukraine in a bid to create what he called a security buffer to protect Russian border regions.

That offensive was focused on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, to the southeast of the Sumy region, from where Tuesday’s cross-border raid was mounted.

However, the attacks on Russian territory have continued, with Russia’s Belgorod region declaring more than a dozen villages near the border no-go zones due to bombardment in July.

Ukraine has repeatedly said it sees attacks on military and energy infrastructure inside Russian territory as a justified response to Moscow’s full-scale military offensive.