Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed concerns about the situation after Moscow reported a cross-border attack on the southwestern Kursk region, alleging that Ukraine was involved in a major provocation.
Alexey Smirnov, the region’s acting governor, said he had introduced a state of emergency amid two days of fierce fighting.
The Ministry of Health said 31 civilians, including six children, had been injured recently. Smirnov said the day before that five people had been killed as Ukrainian troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles breached the border.
Russia did not provide any information on military casualties.
“The Kyiv regime has launched another major provocation,” Putin told Russian government officials yesterday, referring to the attack in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.
Ukraine has not commented directly on the attack, but Russia’s Ministry of Defence stated that Ukrainian forces were advancing to the northwest of the border town of Sudzha, 530km (330 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Russia said it used air and artillery firepower to repel the attack throughout Wednesday, after earlier rushing reinforcements to the region.
Witnesses interviewed on Russian television said they had fled border areas in cars under drone fire. A priest in Sudzha, Evgeny Shestopalov, said in a video shared by Russian media, that the town of about 5,000 people was “on fire” and that residents unable to evacuate had taken shelter in his church.
The extent of the damage and the depth of the Ukrainian advance remains unclear, however. Several reports from Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers suggested the fighters had gained several kilometres.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said in its August 7 update that geolocated footage suggested Ukraine may have advanced as far as 10km (6.2 miles) inside Russia. It said the troops appeared to be trying to advance along the Sudzha-Korenovo highway.
did not refer to the events in Kursk in his nightly video address, while the General Staff did not mention it in its daily battlefield update. In a late evening report, it said fighting had intensified in the Sumy region, where authorities have evacuated about 6,000 people.
The General Staff said Russian forces had deployed aircraft, helicopters, and heavy weapons in the area “but made no headway and suffered significant losses.”
In Washington, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said the United States was seeking an understanding from Ukraine on the incursion, and said it had had no advance knowledge of it.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of the Kremlin:
“It is a little bit rich, them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said.
