This is the third day of one of the biggest cross-border incursions of the Ukrainian war is currently underway, with Russian soldiers engaging enemy forces in the Kursk region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Thursday.
According to a ministry statement, the army is battling Ukrainian combatants who are attempting to advance on the area from Ukraine’s Sumy region, and the Russian military and border guards have prevented Ukrainian troops from moving farther into the Kursk region in southwest Russia.
“Attempts by individual units to break through deep into the territory in the Kursk direction are being suppressed,” according to the ministry.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his senior security and defense officials to review the invasion, which he termed as a “large-scale provocation.” He also discussed the “indiscriminate shelling of civilian buildings, residential houses, and ambulances with different types of weapons”, giving the Cabinet instructions to provide aid to the Kursk area.
Over 200 Ukrainian soldiers were injured in the fighting, according to Russian news agencies, and approximately 100 soldiers had died, according to Army Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov, who briefed Putin via video connection during Wednesday’s meeting. A paramedic and an ambulance driver were among the 24 Russian casualties and at least two persons killed in the bombardment by Ukrainian forces, according to a statement released on Wednesday by Maria Zakharova, a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry.
According to the Washington-based research tank Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian forces have penetrated as far as six miles into Russian territory as of Wednesday. The cross-border incursion would rank among the biggest that Ukraine has undertaken since Russia began its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
Ukrainian authorities did not provide further details, but it is possible that Kyiv wants to attract Russian reserves to the region in order to undermine Moscow’s offensive efforts in various areas of the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, where Russian forces have stepped up their attacks and are progressively moving closer to operationally significant gains. At a time when Kyiv’s soldiers are poised to face further strikes in the coming weeks, the operation may also help to improve morale in Ukraine.
