Russia evacuates thousands people as Ukraine claims advances
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00:00Leaving everything behind as they flee the Ukrainian army's advance.
00:04These images from a Russian government handout show residents of the Kursk region,
00:09roughly 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, being evacuated.
00:13It was such a shelling, they were hitting the houses directly.
00:17It's a good thing that we managed to run to a basement.
00:20Russian authorities say at least 200,000 people have been displaced from its border regions
00:27since Ukraine launched a lightning cross-border raid on August 6th.
00:31A raid that has since become a sustained military incursion,
00:34the largest on Russia's soil since World War II.
00:38This woman is now in a refugee aid center in Moscow.
00:43For the last two nights it was just horrible.
00:45We didn't sleep, our beds were shaking, we were shaking from the explosions.
00:51Kiev says its forces are continuing to gain ground,
00:54with a goal of creating a buffer zone to protect its own border regions from new Russian offensives,
00:59as well as replenishing its stock of Russian prisoners of war,
01:02to exchange for captured Ukrainian troops.
01:05Moscow says Ukrainian shelling has killed at least 12 civilians in Kursk and injured
01:10some 100 more, with hundreds of aid centers opened to deliver meals and other necessities.
01:18On Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Ukrainian troops had captured
01:22more than 100 Russian soldiers during the Kursk operation.
01:26In the neighboring region of Belgorod,
01:28the Russian government has declared a federal-level emergency, with thousands more evacuated there,
01:33in what has become a major black eye for Vladimir Putin's security reputation.