The Russian army reported on Wednesday that fighting was “continuing” in the Kursk region, on the border with Ukraine, the scene of an incursion by Ukrainian troops the day before and the target of strikes that left at least five civilians dead.
According to Moscow, Ukrainian forces entered the Russian region on Tuesday with nearly 300 soldiers, a dozen tanks and twenty armored vehicles. kyiv, for its part, has remained largely silent on the operation.
President Vladimir Putin denounced a “large-scale provocation”, accusing Ukrainian forces of “indiscriminately firing with different types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, homes and ambulances”.
He is due to meet with security and military officials later in the day, ordering local authorities to “provide necessary assistance” to the population.
The Russian Defense Ministry assured that “the operation to destroy the Ukrainian army formations continues,” more than 24 hours after the start of this incursion.
According to him, the clashes continued “during the night” in the areas “immediately adjacent to the border.”
The ministry assured on Telegram that Russian soldiers “prevented the enemy from advancing deep into Russian territory,” thus appearing to acknowledge that Ukrainian soldiers conquered ground during their incursion.
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”.
Thousands evacuated
Several thousand people have evacuated the area due to the fighting and shelling, which has left at least five civilians dead and 28 injured, local authorities said, adding that all public events have been cancelled.
According to the Russian Health Ministry, 13 people, including three children, were hospitalized in the region following the Ukrainian shelling.
In this context, acting governor Alexei Smirnov called on the population to donate blood to replenish the stocks of medical institutions.
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.
Ukrainian military expert Sergei Zgurets said the Ukrainian military appeared to be trying to divert Russian forces from other sectors of the front, where they have been pushing for several months.
“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 and perhaps in other regions,” he told AFP.
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,” added Mr. Zgourets.
Drone attacks
Ukrainian drone attacks also targeted residential buildings in two other Russian regions bordering Ukraine, Voronezh and Belgorod, on Wednesday, their respective authorities said.
“Two drones attacked an apartment building” in Shebekino, Belgorod region, breaking windows in one apartment and causing a fire in another, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, according to whom “no one was injured.”
In Voronezh, the capital of the region of the same name, debris from two drones shot down by anti-aircraft defenses damaged the facade of a building and broke the windows of several apartments in another, explained its governor Alexander Gusev.
There have been several incursions into Russia by fighters from Ukraine since the conflict began in February 2022.
The Russian army has always claimed to have repelled them, but some of them have led it to resort to artillery and aviation, as was the case with the one on Tuesday.
The operation comes at a time when Russian troops have been gradually gaining ground in eastern Ukraine for months, facing a Ukrainian army lacking new recruits and ammunition.
Russian troops also launched a ground offensive in the Kharkiv border region in May, capturing several towns before being halted by Ukrainian forces.