A “new large-scale provocation,” according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia announced Tuesday, August 6, that it was fighting against an incursion by the Ukrainian army into the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, which is continuing this Wednesday. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian forces entered this Russian region with “11 tanks and about twenty armored vehicles,” reports the Financial Times, While Russian General Staff Chief Valery Gerasimov later claimed that “up to 1,000” Ukrainian troops were being mobilized, kyiv has largely kept quiet about the operation.
Thousands evacuated, according to Russian authorities
Several thousand people have evacuated the area due to the fighting and shelling, which has killed at least five civilians and injured 28, local authorities said, adding that all public events have been cancelled. In Ukraine, in the Sumy region, which faces Kursk, authorities have ordered the “mandatory evacuation” of 23 localities, a measure affecting about 6,000 people, including 425 children, according to Governor Volodymyr Artyukh.
According to the Russian Health Ministry, 13 people, including three children, have been hospitalized in the region as a result of the Ukrainian shelling. In this context, the acting Russian governor Alexei Smirnov called on the population to donate blood to replenish the stocks of medical facilities.
President Vladimir Putin accused Ukrainian forces of “indiscriminately firing various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, homes and ambulances.” He was due to meet with security and military officials later in the day, ordering local authorities to “provide necessary assistance” to the population.
The operation is still ongoing
The Russian Defense Ministry also assured that “the operation to destroy the Ukrainian army formations continues,” more than 24 hours after the start of this incursion. According to it, the clashes continued “during the night” in the areas “immediately adjacent to the border.”
The ministry assured on Telegram that Russian troops “prevented the enemy from advancing deep into Russian territory,” appearing to acknowledge that Ukrainian troops had gained ground during their incursion. “The enemy’s advance deep into the territory was stopped by air and artillery strikes,” Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov also assured President Vladimir Putin during a meeting broadcast on Russian television.
According to the Telegram channel Rybar, followed by more than a million people and close to the Russian army, Ukrainian troops have seized three villages in the Kursk region. A source within the Ukrainian security services (SBU) claimed responsibility to AFP for the destruction in flight by a small drone of a Russian Mi-28 helicopter, which would be a “first in the history of war”.
Divert Russian forces from other sectors?
The Ukrainian authorities have been observing a near-total silence on the situation in the Kursk region since Tuesday. Several senior Ukrainian officials interviewed by AFP declined to comment.
“I think one of the goals (of kyiv) is to withdraw the (Russian) reserves, to simplify the actions of our military in the Kharkiv sector (northeast) and perhaps in other regions,” Ukrainian military expert Sergiy Zgurets told AFP, who estimated that the Ukrainian army seemed to be trying to divert Russian forces from other sectors of the front. The geography of this area in Russia allows “to effectively carry out this type of dissuasive action against the enemy with a reduced force and this is probably what the Ukrainian army is doing,” the expert added.
Several incursions into Russia by fighters from Ukraine have taken place since the start of the conflict in February 2022. The Russian army has each time claimed to have repelled them, but some of them have led it to resort to artillery and aviation, as is the case for the one on Tuesday.
The operation comes as Russian troops have been steadily gaining ground in eastern Ukraine for months, facing a Ukrainian army short of new recruits and ammunition. Russian troops also launched a ground offensive in May in the border region of Kharkiv, seizing several towns before being stopped by Ukrainian forces.