AFU сommander-in-сhief announces creation of military commandant’s office in Kursk region

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has established a Ukrainian military commandant’s office on Russian territory captured in the Kursk region, AFU Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military’s high command on Thursday.

Syrskyi announced that the office would be headed by Major General Eduard Moskalev, adding that the AFU had now penetrated 35 kilometres into Russian territory, and currently controlled 82 Russian villages in an area of 1,150 square kilometres.

Promising to provide full details of the meeting at a later date, Zelensky mentioned that the discussions covered the use of weapons in the Kursk region, the prospect of future prisoner exchanges, and legislative initiatives.

On Thursday, Italian public broadcaster Rai aired a report from the Ukrainian-occupied Russian town of Sudzha, after Rai 1 correspondent Stefania Battistini entered the town with Ukrainian servicemen in an armoured vehicle.

“We reached Sudzha in the Kursk region of Russia with the advancing Ukrainian army. The civilian houses are intact. We can hear the sound of drones,” Battistini wrote on X.

When asked why they had not evacuated, a resident interviewed by Battistini explained that the Russian authorities had simply failed to turn up at the muster point where she had been instructed to wait. However, she added that the AFU troops now occupying the area had been kind to her throughout.