Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of a “major provocation” after Moscow said it was fighting a major cross-border attack in the southwestern region of Kursk.
Alexey Smirnov, the region’s acting governor, said he introduced the state of emergency amid two days of fierce fighting.
The Health Ministry said 31 civilians, including six children, were injured on Wednesday. Smirnov said the day before that five people were killed when Ukrainian troops backed by tanks and armored vehicles stormed the border.
Russia has not provided any information on military casualties.
“The Kiev regime has launched another major provocation,” Putin told Russian government officials on Wednesday, referring to the attack in the Kursk region, which borders the Sumy region in northern Ukraine.
Ukraine has not commented directly on the attack, but Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukrainian forces were advancing northwest of the border town of Sudzha, 530 kilometers (330 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Russia said it used aerial and artillery firepower to repel the attack during Wednesday after sending reinforcements to the region.
Witnesses interviewed by Russian television said they fled the 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 inhabitants was “on fire” and that residents who were unable to evacuate had taken shelter in their church.
The extent of the damage and the depth of the Ukrainian advance remain, however, unclear.
Several reports from Ukrainian and Russian military bloggers suggested that the fighters had advanced several kilometers.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, said in its August 7 update that geolocated imagery suggested Ukraine may have advanced as far as 10 km (6.2 miles) into Russia. He said troops appeared to be trying to advance along the Sudzha-Korenovo highway.
In the meeting with Putin, Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of staff, said Russian forces had stopped an attack by about 1,000 Ukrainian troops – more than three times the number the Defense Ministry said were involved on Tuesday – and that they would push them back to the border.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made no reference to the events in Kursk in his evening video address, while the General Staff did not mention it in its daily battlefield update. In a report published late in the evening, he said fighting had intensified in the Sumy region, where authorities had evacuated around 6,000 people.
The General Staff said Russian forces deployed planes, helicopters and heavy weapons in the area, “but made no progress and suffered significant losses.”
In Washington, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said that the United States was seeking an understanding from Ukraine about the incursion and that it had no prior knowledge of it.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stressed that the US has not changed its policy on Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weaponry, which could only be used “to target imminent threats across the border.” ”.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of the Kremlin: “It’s a little rich, they call it a provocation, given that Russia has violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.”
The battles around Sudzha come as Russia announces advances along the front line in eastern Ukraine and claims to have seized 420 square kilometers (162 square miles) of territory from Ukrainian forces since June 14.
Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Pro-Kiev forces, including Russian units fighting on the side of Ukraine such as the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Russian Freedom Legion, have made several brief incursions into Russia since then.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
