Russia has accused Ukrainian troops of crossing the border into its Kursk region, which, if confirmed, marks the first incursion of its kind from Ukraine and puts pressure on Moscow in an area largely unaffected by the two-year war.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, the Russian Investigative Committee and the Russian Ombudsman for Children all said Ukrainian forces had launched a “massive attack” on Tuesday, attempting to break through the Russian defenses on the borders of the Kursk region, which sits just north of Ukraine’s Sumy region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the alleged incursion a “large-scale provocation,” saying Kyiv conducted “indiscriminate shooting from various types of weapons, including missiles, at civilian buildings, residential buildings, and ambulances.”
Russian authorities and military bloggers said Ukrainian forces attacked by land and air to enter Russia near the town of Sudzha, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the border.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that about 300 troops, supported by tanks and armored vehicles, attacked Russian positions near the villages of Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya.
Initially, the ministry said the attack was repelled, but that statement was later corrected to say that “the enemy is being inflicted with fire damage.”
Aleksey Smirnov, the acting head of Kursk region, said Wednesday that several thousand people left the area over the past 24 hours.
It is unclear why Ukrainian forces would launch an attack of the scale described by Russian authorities.
Ukrainian troops have found themselves under increased pressure along the 600-mile frontline as Moscow continues its slow, grinding offensive, so it could be an attempt to divert Russian resources elsewhere. Given the spate of more negative developments from the frontline, the news of a successful incursion help Kyiv boost the morale of its troops and civilian population.
If confirmed, the attack would be a major development in the conflict – even if its immediate impact is limited.
While there have been reports of pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups crossing into Russia, none have caused significant damage. The Ukrainian military has regularly attacked targets inside Russia with drones and missiles, but Kyiv has not launched any official ground incursions across the border in the two and half years since the start of the full-scale war.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based conflict monitoring group, said it had geolocated footage published on August 6 that shows damaged and abandoned armored vehicles roughly 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) north of the border, but said it could not confirm if they were Russian, Ukrainian or both.
Russian forces have meanwhile been inching toward the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, threatening a vital Ukrainian supply line. At the same time, Russian forces claim to have seized the village of Niu York and are getting closer to Toretsk.