Key civilian leader says attack on Russia’s Kursk region is first of ‘several stages’ in taking the fight to Moscow

Ukraine has captured more than 150 Russian prisoners of war on some days in the cross-border military operation that a key civilian official said was the first of “several stages” in taking the fight to Moscow.

Oleksii Drozdenko, the head of the military administration in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, said the attack had fared better than expected and there had been only 15 casualties needing hospital treatment on the first day.

“Sometimes there are more than 100 or 150 prisoners of war a day,” Drozdenko said. Many of the Russian troops who have been guarding the border are young conscripts. “They do not want to fight us,” he added.