tens of thousands of evacuees in russia, where the ukrainian offensive continues. says: the war moves to the territory of the aggressor. what has ukraine achieved so far and does the ukrainian army have the ability to hold the so-called kursk bridgehead? we are talking about this today on the bbc, live from london, jafer umerov is working in the studio. the ukrainian offensive in the south of russia has been going on for a week now, but how did the events unfold? it all started last week with reports that ukrainian forces had entered russian territory. and they

probably did it on the morning of august 6. and already too incomplete two days, as of august 7, russian sources assured that the armed forces managed to break through the russian border and create a bridgehead in russia. however , official moscow said that it would not allow ukrainian forces to advance deep into the country. but in a week, ukrainian forces managed not only to go deep into russia, and according to various reports, this is from 30 to 50 km, but also to start strengthening their forces. positions, forbes magazine writes about it. the commander-in-chief of the armed forces oleksandr serskyy today, august 12, announced that 100 km are under the control of the ukrainian army and added that the offensive continues. and kursk governor andriy smirnov, during an operational meeting with vladimir putin, said that 28 settlements are under the control of ukrainian forces and that the overall situation in the region is difficult. and according to him, the armed forces advanced to a depth of 12 km and occupy

an area of ​​40 km in width. he also reported on the dead civilians and the evacuation of more than 100,000 people. people began to be evacuated from other border regions of russia, bryansk and belgrade, some by the russian authorities introduced the kto regime, that is, the regime of counterterrorist operation. as they say, because of threats of attacks by the zso. however, the american institute for the study of war says that... russian authorities have declared the kto, not martial law , in order to downplay the scale of the ukrainian advance. bbs security correspondent gordon korera found out what the operational situation looks like on this new battlefield and what are the scenarios for its development in the future? the russian flag was torn off and thrown to the ground, and the ukrainian flag flew in its place. for the first time after the second world war war, russia found that its own territory was conquered and occupied. this operation captured

moscow from nenatsk. last week, ukraine threw tanks and thousands of soldiers across the border. the operation, which the ukrainian president recognized for the first time a few days ago. and today sirskyi has already reported several times about the front and our actions and pushing the war into the territory of the aggressor. thank you to every unit of our defense forces who... russians are leaving their homes because of fears that hostilities may expand. this is the belgorod region, home to 11,000 people told to leave this happened after more than 70,000 residents were evacuated from the neighboring kursk region. it was from there that ukraine began its lightning offensive. people are surprised by the development of events. on the first day, i ran to the grave, then i couldn’t, then i was in

my room and thought, whatever will happen, i curled up, and bang, bang, this operation is a bold and perhaps even risky step by ukraine, they sent part of their best forces to russia, here it is marked in yellow . some forces are reported to have advanced on 30 km from the border. their goal seems to be to force russia to react and move its own. forces away from the front lines inside ukraine, marked here in red, where moscow has been advancing recently, but it is not clear whether ukraine simply wants to inflict a psychological blow, or whether it will actually try to hold this territory. the charred russian military equipment is one indicator of how unprepared moscow was for something like this, but the kremlin has promised a tough response to what putin called a major provocation. this battle is just started, but the future... battles in this

kurdish pocket will be measured in days and weeks, not weeks or months, because the russians will not allow this to continue, they will do everything possible to extinguish everything, because what is happening... in for them, ukraine matters less than what is happening on the russian border. and inside ukraine , a brutal war of confession continues between the two sides. this is the zaporizhzhya as, where the fire occurred. ukraine blamed the russian occupation forces for the fire. the russians blamed ukraine. invasion of ukraine to russia - a bold but risky step. and he changed the dynamics of the war, for now, but the outcome is still unknown. therefore , it is too early to draw conclusions, also because the ukrainian authorities do not comment on the purpose of this operation, and a lot of information is taken from social networks, often from telegram. the bbc verifa unit, which checks

and verifies footage and information, has geo-located and confirmed the authenticity of some of the videos that have appeared in the public domain. next is their analysis of the situation. these shots show soldiers with ukrainian colors on chevrons removes the russian flag from the premises of the village council, this video spread on social networks over the weekend, and we determined its geolocation as the village of sverdlikovo in kursk region. let me remind you that kursk is a border region of russia, where last week ukraine launched its biggest raid on russian territory so far. this is not the first time this area has seen war. in the past few months, there have been regular drone strikes or shelling, but no fever. there are combat operations with the participation of armored vehicles and fighters. one leading ukrainian government official said agency frances that thousands of ukrainian soldiers are involved in the operation, which is significantly more than in russian reports last tuesday about the alleged 1 thousand soldiers. this is not the first breakthrough of troops into

russian territory from ukraine. there have been several smaller raids like this in the past. groups of russians fighting on the side of ukraine took part in them. those raids went several kilometers deep. territory of russia, but this latest raid is different from all the previous ones, it is the deepest and most massive of all that we have seen so far. here is the map of the institute war studies, a us-based think tank. estimates of how far into russia the ukrainian troops have advanced are shown here. we see the most of the known advances so far in this video, which was shared in the russian segment of telegram on sunday. here , russian strikes on ukrainian positions are shown, the geolocation of which we determined to be near... the village of levshenka, which is 25 km from the border. general kalodits, and this is 30 km from the border. last week's ukrainian attack drove the russian

leadership and military from nenatsk. in order to stop the further advance of the ukrainians, the russians began to transfer reinforcements to the border areas and build new defense lines. this video has been analyzed by bbc verifi experts. it is removed from a moving vehicle. here, heavy equipment is shown next to long earthen trenches along the road that runs southeast of the kursk nuclear power plant. and this is approximately 50 km from the border. and here satellite image of roughly the same area taken on saturday. freshly dug trenches are clearly visible here. we know they are new because they weren't there a few days ago. russian government officials say they have evacuated approximately 76,000 civilians from kursk oblast. i expect this figure to grow. calls to evacuate are coming from other areas. on monday morning, the governor

of the belgorod region , another border region where there have already been raids, ordered the evacuation of the population from one district on the border, because, as he said, of the enemy. on unlike the ukrainian government, the russian government actively makes statements, and putin has already commented on the events for the third time since the beginning of the ukrainian offensive in russia. earlier, he called them a provocation, but now he said that ukraine seeks to improve its positions for negotiations in the future. he said what kind of negotiations can be held with people who indiscriminately attack civilians, civilian infrastructure, try to... create threats to nuclear energy facilities, that is, he listed everything that they have been doing in ukraine for the last 2 and a half years russians meanwhile the bbc's correspondent in ukraine, james waterhouse, who is currently working in sumy oblast, says: the offensive operation of the armed forces of ukraine raised the morale

of ukrainians, and he saw signs of preparation for a long operation to hold the territories on the kurdish bridgehead. it is clear to us that ukraine has high hopes for this attack. we saw several military vehicles heading towards the border. all had a recognizable logo in the form of a triangle. this indicates that these machines are involved in joint operations. for the first time in a long time fighting spirit is in the air, because for the first time in a year and a half, there is promotion in ukraine. if you imagine the border between russia and ukraine and the front line in ukraine itself, then this is the territory that russia actually controlled with the help of its greater military capabilities. now, and this is clearly visible, ukraine has concentrated elite fighters here. these are well -trained soldiers who are good-looking. they defeated the russian border guards in the area of ​​the border and therefore advanced deep, and this is very

important, because russia is forced to move forces from other areas, and this undermines a strong image the kremlin, because russia has launched an invasion and is now forced to defend itself. and more about russia's offensive in ukraine, let's talk with ivan stepak, an expert of the ukrainian future institute. congratulations ivanna. now there is a lot of different information about the whereabouts of the ukrainians. military and what is their purpose, which versions do you find most trustworthy? yes you mean where are they or what is the purpose of this operation? let's start with what is the purpose of the operation? look, no one really knows, that's for sure, no one knows, no one can to say, i 100% know, there are different assumptions, and yes, let's go, we have the first assumption, to pull the armed forces of the russian federation in this way, with such an attack, from other fronts in ukraine, for example, kharkiv region, kherson region, zaporizhzhia, donetsk ,

to reduce the intensity of offensive actions. oh, not bad, interesting, it really could be. already yesterday, although unverified, evidence appeared that russia is partially redeploying its armed forces, for example, several battalions of its airborne troops from the kherson direction somewhere to the north, approximately to the north of the russian federation, this... will be kursk, approximately from the kharkiv region, they will take 200 people, several dozen tanks, sappers, unmanned reconnaissance units and so on, that is, there is such a goal, another goal can be to show to the russian authorities, to show the non-russian authorities, the russian people, western society, that the authorities in the russian federation are weak, simply weak and they really stand on clay feet, in principle, this is what they really showed, i... as western society watched with surprise, as the russian military

has been unable to do anything with this limited ukrainian contingent for a week. and there is a third version, it consists in the fact that, apparently, ukraine aims, by temporarily occupying these territories, to hypothetically expose them to future peace negotiations with the russian federation, in order to significantly lower the bar of demands set by the russian federation and hypothetically bargain for others. territories of ukraine that are currently under occupation. but in your opinion, how can the ukrainian forces keep this new site on russian territory? well, first of all, we need political agreement, the political will of individual western countries. please give us permission to use your weapons on the territory of the russian federation within the borders of 1991, without restrictions. if it's a ranged weapon, then please don't put a limit. i am sure that this... will very, very much correct the situation and will affect our positions in the future, secondly, we

need a lot of weapons, we understand that we are limited there, the number of people is limited, we also bear losses, we cannot say what it is easy walk, there are dead, there are wounded, there is destroyed equipment, damaged equipment, we need this kind of material support, in addition to political, of course, thank you, ivan, ivan stupak, an expert on the ukrainian tutu of the future, was on the call, thank you again. so, subscribe to our social media pages so you don't miss the most important news and analysis from our correspondents. we are on facebook, instagram and tiktok. you can watch our episode on youtube if you missed it on the air. so, that's all we have time to tell you today. more stories on our bbc website. ua there is a lot of analysis from our correspondents, and we are back on the air tomorrow at 9:00, take care.

the live broadcast of espresso tv channel continues, it's a new week, my name is khrystyna yatskiv and this is the second part of our monday project. let me remind you that he is in common with andrii. moliem, who will also appear on your screens from minute to minute, and for now i will remind you that we are asking you today, do you think it is likely that belarus will attack ukraine? if you think it is possible, then please call 0800 211381, if you think it can't be then 0800 211 382. again, all your calls are

free, but it's extremely important to us to understand what you think about this, and the council congratulations andriy smoliy, in connection with our kyiv studio andriy, my colleague, i congratulate and glad to see and hear, congratulations, khrystyna, glad to see you, glad to see our tv viewers, our listeners, and next monday i will announce that i will be in the studio and we will spend the new week together with you, analyze. to discuss, talk and forecast, so, let's start, i don't know, in fact, andrei, how restless you are now, when on the one hand you don't have the opportunity to be with our viewers on the air, that is, in a full-fledged format, and on the other hand, there are so many different events are taking place, and

these events are of a constructive nature for us and by no means constructive for the russian... federation, which has shown itself to be a completely ineffective state in relation to, let's say , to a healthy, in a healthy sense of defense their sovereign territories, the internationally recognized borders of the russian federation, here is what every normal country should protect qualitatively, they are a complete failure, instead they are climbing and rowing someone else's, this is how i see the situation, which is now... developing on the line of combat, which over the last week has greatly lengthened, and of course, this puts an additional burden on the defense forces of ukraine, but also one hundred percent diverts the reserves, resources, and attention of the russian federation to another direction that has opened up, kurshchyna. and maybe these days we are

we are watching not only the development of the situation in kurshchyna, but also in bilhorod. not yet, there are reports, defense forces and representatives of the ukrainian army may also be present in one of the formats, we do not know in which. so, first of all , i have a question for you, how did you react in general, how do you see, how do you monitor what is happening at this stage, for journalists, for us, but for me personally, it is a bit difficult to work with information now, because there is a lack of public official information. but there are things that just don't you can close your eyes. i absolutely agree with you here that, in fact, we cannot comment from a military point of view, from an expert point of view, about what is happening, firstly, because there is extremely little official information, or rather it is practically non-existent,

and moreover , the first days we found out about everything that was happening de facto from the mass media, from racist telegram channels of various kinds, warlords, that is , we did not have enough information, but we understood that something was happening, was happening something that russia doesn't like, that the occupiers don't like, and that the main thing in the kremlin doesn't like. that's why i 'm very cautious in general about the coverage of events that are happening in the kursk region of russia, huh. from the point of view that we cannot 100% follow where is the truth, where is the lie, where is some fiction, where is exaggeration, but we can comment on the political, geopolitical, possibly international legal aspect of what is happening, but , what

is happening in the kursk region, and what we are now seeing on... our screens, is first of all everything is a geopolitical context, and it consists in the fact that russia, and, accordingly, putin, the putinists received an unexpected and very big geopolitical blow, because before that it was believed that this way russia might not have achieved the strategic successes that it was supposed to achieve according to ... of the plan in 2022, that is , the actual occupation of most of the territories of ukraine, or the actual change of ukraine's subjectivity, yes, but less so. all hostilities before that took place on the territory of ukraine, took place in the east, took place in the south, the rashists climbed and, unfortunately, still continue the letters, according to the

open data that we have, but still it was discussed in the context of the fact that the war is taking place on the territory of ukraine, and here the geopolitical context changes, and it changes so that actually in... the war begins to take place on the territory of russia, i.e., well, again, if it is not a war, as they say, but a special military operation, then this actual military operation, or now who, or whatever they call it there, is taking place on the territory of ukraine, they are conducting military operations, on in their territory, they conduct cto, a lot they use different definitions in order to... avoid the word war, why do you think they are so afraid of even just, you know, this rhetorical figure,

the russian-speaking jaw now does not want to use it at all, but i am also surprised here, i even expected to a certain extent, that the reaction of the kremlin, the reaction of russia will be tougher, that is, for some reason it seemed to me that after all... putin there, conditionally speaking, will announce a general mobilization, or at least another stage of partial mobilization, but really, you are here too on this you emphasize, and many of our citizens also say this, that we see how russia is trying to generally avoid any explanation of what is happening there, how they say a large-scale provocation, a counterintelligence operation, some kind of attack on the border, they downplay the number of occupied, ostensibly

from the point of view of russia, ukraine, again , ostensibly populated areas, yes, and here we come to the situation that putin's regime is really trying to avoid the issue of war, trying to demonstrate that... everything is under control, i think they understand very well, the situation with the russian army is not as good as it is portrayed among the russian media and among russian officials, i think that there is of course a partial problem with weapons, because even if you mobilize a large the number of people, they are needed, they need to be provided with something. and i think that they are afraid to demonstrate the actual fact that the war has moved to the territory of russia, and that

the putin regime, in this case, in fact, well, if not strategically, then tactically, these days has lost, and i think that and strategically, there is a certain loss for putin, a loss for russia. although it is not yet completely obvious, although russia continues to fight on our territory, but it is a huge blow, so of course they react like this, i do not know how they will react further, of course, in theory, most likely they will try to take some measures, at least of a demonstrative nature, to hit ukraine, i think so. well, again, from the logic of the terrorists, from the logic of the kremlin killers, that they will need to interrupt it in some way with information, so no

is excluded, of course, powerful missile strikes are not excluded, some provocations are not excluded, by the way, one of the provocations was already carried out yesterday at the zaporizhia nuclear power plant, why was it carried out, because they drew a parallel between zas and between. the kurdish nuclear power plant, that is , informationally, they are already trying to stop it in some way, ugh, and here is this allegedly racist power, where they said that if they attack russia there, if there is even one soldier there, as putin said, there and his eyes are all medvedevs , nightingales, will cross the border with russia, we are there, russia will stand up, boot to boot , and... we will all go west against these fascists, nazis, as they claimed, we see that this is a bubble of these claims, it

burst, ugh, that is, on... . even we expected that, well, somehow russia, which has been showing its supposed power all the time, again, it is supposed that here it caught a lick, because they never expected that someone would go to their territory, again, why they did not expect, they most likely, even if they thought. that our troops can cross the border line, they were convinced that the united states of america, the european union, and in general our international partners would never allow this to happen, this was their, most likely strategic , opinion that we would never be allowed to cross the border and , conditionally speaking, to occupy rashist settlements. most.

here, in fact, i would like to figure it out, maybe now we will try to do it together, we understand the current state of international law, yes, the borders of states are generally recognized in the international sense, we we understand that the russian federation has been plundering all this for decades, and now, well, it is just a rag on which russia has wiped its feet, but on the other hand, for... the countries of the civilized world, internationally recognized borders, sovereign territory, the sovereignty of other countries, well, they remained important and non-violating rules, and now, it turns out, on the one hand, we are playing by the rules of the russian federation, the rules of hybridity, the hybridization of this conflict, and our defense forces are doing it perfectly, on the other hand, russia

definitely... believed, that the western civilized the world that respects international law, which it has plundered, will not allow ukraine to cross the border, and the western world was very laconic in its reactions in the early days, and today, moreover, we see a bipartisan delegation of american senators in kyiv, who are already openly talking about the fact that the administration of the white house must be persuaded to remove any restriction on... strikes on russian territories, we see the germans in their respective defense committees saying that we have handed over our tanks to ukraine, from this moment on, they are ukrainian tanks, and ukraine will be to use them as he sees fit is a complete change of rhetoric. we see that the world has somehow changed its approach, but aren't we all falling, aren't we all falling into a trap, where, well, let's say... these are

the boundaries that were set after the second world war, come out, well, rather floating and indistinct. i now emphasize that i absolutely support and encourage, and support on many levels, which i would not like to talk about on the air now, the actions of the defense forces of ukraine on the territory of the russian federation. nevertheless, there were all the consequences it would be fair to talk about absolutely everything, even potentially negative ones, i think so. that the civilized world has long understood, at least in recent months, that international law, it is already trampled, that is, at least in our part of the world, and i emphasize once again, i am more than convinced, the western world, the civilized world in particular, rather for everything he gave his own, whether silent or

not silent. consent to the actions carried out today by the armed forces of ukraine, the defense forces, i do not believe that someone there did not know about something, i think that they did, but in the end, listen, in today's world it's impossible not to know, there are satellites that are online 24/7 showing what's going on, so it's impossible not to know, at least for those with modern technology, that's why they probably gave the go-ahead to that ... in order to force putin russia to, well , at least some kind of negotiations or peace, here putin constantly forced everyone to peace, remember, in georgia, there and in other countries, there is always a push for peace, they are called, well, i believe that it is something like that the answer is roughly proportional, but the question is different.