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Putin orders army to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops from Russian territory as over 120,000 flee border area
President Vladimir Putin ordered his army on Monday to “dislodge” Ukrainian troops who have entered Russian territory as authorities said more than 120,000 people had been evacuated away from the fighting.
Kyiv launched a surprise offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region last Tuesday, capturing more than two dozen settlements in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II.
“One of the obvious goals of the enemy is to sow discord, strife, intimidate people, destroy the unity and cohesion of Russian society,” Putin told a televised meeting with government officials.
“The main task is, of course, for the defense ministry to dislodge the enemy from our territories,” he said.
Some 121,000 people have fled the Kursk region since the start of the fighting, which has killed at least 12 civilians and injured 121 more, regional governor Alexei Smirnov told the meeting with Putin.
Authorities in Kursk announced on Monday they were widening their evacuation area to include the Belovsky district, home to some 14,000 residents. The neighboring Belgorod region also said it was evacuating its border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.
“Apparently, the enemy is striving to improve its negotiating positions in the future,” Putin said Monday. “But what kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately strike at civilians, at civilian infrastructure?”
Russia launched a “full-scale invasion” of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and since then, Russia has attacked numerous Ukrainian population centers. Russian strikes have hit Ukrainian hospitals, theaters, train stations and shopping malls.
Since last week, Ukraine has pierced into Russia by at least seven miles and captured 28 towns and villages, with the new front 25 miles long, Smirnov said.
A top Ukrainian official told AFP over the weekend that the operation was aimed at stretching Russian troops and destabilizing the country after months of slow Russian advances across the frontline.
Putin said Russia would respond by showing “unanimous support for all those in distress” and claimed there had been an increase in men signing up to fight.
“The enemy will receive a worthy riposte,” he said.
The assault appeared to catch the Kremlin off guard. Russia’s army rushed in reserve troops, tanks, aviation, artillery and drones in a bid to quash it, but it conceded on Sunday that Ukraine had penetrated up to 20 miles into Russian territory in places.
On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged for the first time that his country’s military forces were fighting in the operation.
In his night video address, Zelenskyy said he discussed the ongoing incursion “to push the war onto the aggressor’s territory” with top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi.
“Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor,” he said.
A Ukrainian security official told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that “the aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilize the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border.”
The Ukrainian official said thousands of Ukrainian troops were involved in the operation.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Monday that its air defense systems had destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones – including 11 over the Kursk region.
Russia’s emergency situations ministry said on Sunday that over 44,000 residents in the Kursk region have applied for financial assistance, TASS news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Russia’s rail operator has organized emergency trains from Kursk to Moscow, around 280 miles away, for those fleeing.
“It’s scary to have helicopters flying over your head all the time,” said Marina, refusing to give her surname, who arrived by train in Moscow on Sunday. “When it was possible to leave, I left.”
Across the border in Ukraine’s Sumy region, AFP journalists on Sunday saw dozens of armored vehicles daubed with a white triangle — the insignia apparently being used to identify Ukrainian military hardware deployed in the attack.
At an evacuation center in the regional capital of Sumy, 70-year-old retired metal worker Mykola, who fled his village of Khotyn some 10 kilometers from the Russian border, welcomed Ukraine’s push into Russia.
“Let’s let them find out what it’s like,” he told AFP. “They don’t understand what war is. Let them have a taste of it.”
Analysts think Kyiv may have launched the assault to relieve pressure on its troops in other parts of the frontline.
But the Ukrainian official said: “Their pressure in the east continues, they are not pulling back troops from the area,” even if “the intensity of Russian attacks has gone down a little bit.”
The Ukrainian official said he expected Russia would “in the end” stop the incursion.
Ukraine was bracing for a large-scale retaliatory missile attack, including “on decision-making centers” in Ukraine, the official said.
contributed to this report.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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