Russia vows strong retaliation over Ukraine's attack on border regions

Moscow/Kyiv: Ukraine's attacks on Russia's border will receive a "worthy response," with the Russian military's primary task being to remove the Ukrainian forces from Russian territories, President Vladimir Putin said Monday.

"The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response, and all the goals facing us will undoubtedly be achieved," Putin said at an operational meeting via videoconference on the situation in the border regions.

Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border last Tuesday and broke into parts of Russia's Kursk region. Currently, the Ukrainian military holds 28 settlements in the area, according to Alexei Smirnov, the region's acting governor.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday confirmed that Ukraine is carrying out an "operation" in the region.

"Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky reported on our defensive actions on the front and our operation in the Kursk region," Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

The Ukrainian leader also said that he instructed the country's Security Service, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko and other officials to prepare a humanitarian plan for the area of the "operation", Xinhua news agency reported.

Separately, Oleksandr Syrsky wrote on Telegram that currently Ukrainian forces control about 1,000 square km of Russian territory.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 38 Shahed-type drones at Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, and the air defence intercepted 30 of them.

The projectiles were destroyed over eight regions in southern, northern and central Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.

The Russian forces also fired two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles at Ukraine from the Voronezh region, the air force said, without giving further details.

Infrastructure facilities, including a gas pipeline and a hospital, were damaged. One person was injured in the attack in Ukraine's northeastern city of Sumy, the Sumy Regional Military Administration said in a statement.

A nationwide air alert was issued in Ukraine on Tuesday morning after a MIG-31 fighter, a carrier of Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles, took off from an airfield in Russia.

On Sunday, the infrastructure of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reported to have sustained serious damage because of a fire in the cooling systems.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said late Monday that its experts visited a damaged cooling tower of the nuclear power plant earlier that day but have not been able to determine the cause of the fire.

Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the incident. Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack, while Ukraine said Russian "negligence" or arson could have sparked the fire.

"The team has not been able to draw definitive conclusions on the basis of the findings and observations so far," the agency said in the statement, adding that it will continue further analysis.

It affirms that the nuclear safety of the Zaporizhzhia plant has not been affected by the incident, as its cooling towers are not in operation. The agency also confirmed no signs of elevated radiation levels in the area of the plant's cooling towers.