Hello and welcome to New Zaa from the BBC World Service coming to you live from our

studios in Central London I'm Julian Marshall. It's a week now since thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed over into Russia's

Kursk region mounting a surprise attack that caught Russia off guard.

They've since been reinforced with more troops and more equipment.

Described initially as a campaign to make Russia feel what war is like and a morale booster

for Ukrainians.

Government officials in Kyiv are now saying that the operation is defensive

and there are no plans to hold on to the increasing amount of territory that has been seized.

President Zelensky says his country now controls 74 Russian settlements.

Another district in the Russian region of course, because started evacuating residents.

The head of the Bolshizold-Datsky region

said people had started leaving

at their own accord, and the authorities

are now helping them.

Moscow said on Tuesday that it had foiled fresh Ukrainian attacks but Russian war bloggers spoke

of ongoing battles.

The BBC's James Waterhouse spoke to me from northeastern Ukraine bordering

Kursk region. Well we are in the Sumi region we're just south of the city of Sumi region.

And for the past couple of days,

we've been speaking to soldiers.

Soldiers who are visibly well-trained among Ukraine's more elite forces. and they've typically been sort of propping up equally muscular

vehicles, you know, Humvees, tanks, howitzers and armored vehicles that I couldn't even name.

...