Ukrainian forces have taken full control of the Russian town of Sudzha in the Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on August 15, adding that the Ukrainian military is setting up a command office there.
Sudzha is the administrative center for the border area of the Kursk region and is larger than any of the other small towns or settlements that Ukraine says its forces have taken since launching a cross-border incursion on August 6.
Zelenskiy didn't elaborate on what functions the command office might handle, although he said earlier that Ukraine would be distributing humanitarian aid to Sudzha residents in need.
An informed source within the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) told RFE/RL on August 15 that Ukraine had captured 102 Russian soldiers in the Kursk region, one of numerous competing claims by both sides about the fighting in the western Russian region.
"This is the result of a special operation carried out by soldiers of...the SBU," the source said about the operation the previous day.
A Telegram channel connected to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported that "more than 100 Russians" had surrendered on August 14 after having been "abandoned by their commanders."
It was unclear whether it was the same group of Russian soldiers.
Ukraine's top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, announced that a military commandant's office had been created for the parts of the Kursk region controlled by Ukrainian forces. The office has been charged with assuring order and the safety of civilians.
Syrskiy also said Ukraine now controls 82 settlements in the region and about 1,150 square kilometers of territory.
Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces had regained control of the Kursk region settlement of Krupets. It was Moscow's first claim to have retaken a settlement since the Ukrainian incursion began on August 6.
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The ministry added that "the enemy has been eliminated" in the area and that Russian forces had "thwarted" Ukraine's advances.
Ukrainian officials said Russian strikes in three Ukrainian regions killed five civilians. Two people were killed in an air attack in the northeastern Kharkiv region and one person died in an artillery strike in Donetsk in the east, local officials said.
One person was killed in a drone attack and another died in a hospital from injuries sustained in an earlier strike in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, authorities said.
Neither side's battlefield claims could be independently verified.
Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov met in Moscow with military officials, members of the presidential administration, and the governors of the three western Russian regions most directly affected by the Ukrainian incursion.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss additional measures to ensure "the integrity and inviolability of the territory and protecting the population and infrastructure” of the Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions, a ministry statement said.
Kursk region officials earlier in the day ordered the mandatory evacuation of civilians from the entire Glushkov district situated along the border with Ukraine.
The Glushkov district is also near the region's Sudzha district, which has been the scene of the most intense fighting since Ukraine launched its military incursion into Russian territory. Its prewar population was about 20,000 people.
Announcing the move, acting Kursk region Governor Aleksei Smirnov called on locals to "treat the current situation with understanding and follow all recommendations of security agencies and local authorities" in a post on Telegram.Amid the fighting, authorities in Ukraine on August 14 voiced concern about the humanitarian situation in Kursk and announced efforts to assist displaced Russians, including those who wish to evacuate to Ukraine.
"Ukraine complies with all norms of international humanitarian law," the Reintegration Ministry wrote on Facebook. "We will provide the civilians of the Kursk region with the necessary protection and humanitarian support."
Russia has declared a federal state of emergency for the Kursk region and a regional state of emergency for the neighboring Belgorod region. Moscow has also proclaimed an "anti-terrorism operation" in the Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions.
Ukraine's military reported on August 15 that Russia had targeted at least nine regions of the country with missile and drone attacks overnight, most of them launched from air bases inside Russia, saying that 29 drones were reported "destroyed."
Late on August 14, Ukraine's military confirmed that it had launched drone strikes targeting four airfields in Russia's Voronezh, Kursk, and Nizhny Novgorod regions and had caused heavy damage.
Earlier, a source in the Ukrainian security agency told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service that it was the largest attack on Russian airfields since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.