Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the alleged attack by the Ukrainian armed forces on the Kursk region on the border between the two countries a “large-scale provocation.” Putin said before a meeting of the Russian Security Council in Moscow that the Ukrainian army was carrying out “indiscriminate shelling of civilian targets.” Early on Wednesday afternoon, the Russian chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, told the president that the advance had been halted by Russian troops, Reuters reports, but that fighting was continuing in some border areas.
No official source in kyiv has commented on what would be the first Ukrainian infantry attack on Russian territory. The previous ground incursions into Russian provinces launched from the invaded country during the war, repelled days later, were carried out by paramilitary groups led by Russians opposed to Putin.
Russian military sources have estimated the alleged losses of the Ukrainian army in the Kursk province, bordering the Ukrainian Sumy, at 260 dead soldiers and 50 destroyed armoured vehicles, including seven tanks. Russia maintains that the damaged armoured vehicles abandoned on Russian territory, seven kilometres from the border, whose geolocated images were released on Tuesday, belonged to the Ukrainian army.
However, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which conducts a daily analysis of Russia’s large-scale offensive against Ukraine, has been unable to confirm or deny whether the vehicles are Russian, Ukrainian, or both. The ISW has also been unable to verify the veracity of images posted by Russian military bloggers of the aftermath of the alleged Ukrainian strikes. “Most of the damage shown in the images appears to be the result of routine Ukrainian shelling and does not indicate any ground activity in the area,” the report by the US think tank says.
Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov said on social media that the situation was “under control,” but added that “several thousand” residents of areas close to the fighting had already been evacuated and that authorities had prepared shelters for 2,500 displaced people. More than 300 people, including 121 children, have already been relocated. All public events have been cancelled in the region of just over a million people. In televised remarks, Gerasimov said that Russian forces were continuing to “destroy the enemy” in areas close to the border.
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Russia says the incursion began on Tuesday morning, when some 300 Ukrainian soldiers, supported by 11 tanks and more than 20 anti-aircraft missiles, reportedly attacked the positions of units guarding the border in the municipalities of Sudzha and Korenevo, specifically in areas close to the settlements of Nikolaevo-Darino and Oleshnia.
Artillery and air strikes
On Wednesday morning, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that fighting was continuing for a second day in a row, but that both the armed forces and the border guard were preventing the advance of Ukrainian troops. “Air strikes, missiles, artillery fire and the actions of units covering the state border of the group of forces in the Kursk direction prevented the enemy from advancing deep into the territory of the Russian Federation,” it said. So far, three civilians have been killed and 24 wounded since the fighting began, 13 of whom have been hospitalized, according to Russian officials.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has called on the international community to “strongly condemn the criminal actions of the Kiev regime,” RIA Novosti reports. “With a barbaric attack in the Kursk region, Kiev has tried to spread panic and show a semblance of activity against the background of the constant failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” she said.
Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory have been taking place since at least last year, but mainly with the launching of drones against targets such as refineries.
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