Russia strikes back at Ukrainian forces in Kursk region

[August 13, 2024]  By Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian forces on Tuesday struck back at Ukrainian troops with missiles, drones and airstrikes in actions that one senior commander said had halted Ukraine's advance after the biggest attack on sovereign Russian territory since the war began.

Ukrainian soldiers smashed through the Russian border a week ago in a surprise attack that Russian President Vladimir Putin said was aimed at improving Kyiv's negotiating position ahead of possible talks and slowing the advance of Russian forces along the front.

Ukraine carved out a slice of Russian territory, illustrating the weakness of Russia's border defenses and prompting Moscow to evacuate at least 200,000 people while it rushed in reserves and imposed a security lockdown.

Russian war bloggers reported intense battles across the Kursk front as Ukrainian forces tried to expand their control, though they said Russia was bringing in soldiers and heavy weaponry and had repelled many of the Ukrainian attacks.

Russia's defense ministry published footage of Sukhoi Su-34 bombers striking at what it said were Ukrainian troops in the Kursk border region and of infantry storming Ukrainian positions.

"The uncontrolled ride of the enemy has already been halted," said Major General Apti Alaudinov, the commander of the Chechen Akhmat special forces unit. "The enemy is already aware that the blitzkrieg that it planned did not work out."

It was not clear which side was in control of the Russian town of Sudzha, through which Russia pumps gas from Western Siberia through Ukraine and on to Slovakia and other European Union countries. Gazprom said Tuesday it was still pumping gas to Ukraine through Sudzha.

The acting governor of Kursk, Alexei Smirnov, said on Monday that Ukraine controlled 28 settlements in the region, and the incursion was about 12 km deep and 40 km wide.

Ukraine, though, claimed it controlled 1,000 square km (386 square miles) of Russian, more than double what the figures given by Smirnov indicate. Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield accounts.

The Ukrainian bet on a daring incursion into the world's biggest nuclear power carries risks for both Kyiv and Moscow.

BORDER BET

After the Russian invasion in 2022, Western leaders said they would help Ukraine defeat Russian troops on the battlefield and drive them out. Ukraine recaptured large swathes of territory in 2022.

A damaged car is seen on the roadside, following an incursion of Ukrainian troops in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Kursk region, Russia August 12, 2024. Kommersant Photo/Aleksandr Chernykh via REUTERS

But Ukraine's counteroffensive in 2023 failed to pierce heavily dug-in Russian lines, and Russian forces have been advancing this year deeper into Ukrainian territory.

At his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, Putin told top officials that Russia would force out the Ukrainian troops and promised a "worthy response", saying that Russian forces were speeding up their advance along other parts of the front.

Still, the foreign occupation of Russian land was an embarrassment for the Russian army and for Putin, who appeared visibly impatient with at least one official during a televised meeting on Monday. Russia controls just under one fifth of territory internationally recognized as Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians in his nightly address that the operation in Russia was a matter of Ukrainian security and the Kursk region had been used by Russia to launch many strikes against Ukraine.

But by dedicating forces to Kursk, Ukraine may leave other parts of the front exposed just as Russia has been advancing. Russia which has a far larger army, could try to encircle Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine's Western backers, which have been keen to avoid an escalation of the war into a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, said they had no prior warning of the Ukrainian offensive.

Putin said that the West was using Ukraine to fight a proxy war with Russia and the border incursion was an attempt to undermine Russian domestic stability.

Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said Zelenskiy was taking crazy steps that risked an escalation far beyond Ukraine's borders.

In Kursk, 121,000 people had already left or have been evacuated and another 59,000 were in the process of being evacuated, local officials said. In Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Kursk, 11,000 civilians were also evacuated, the region's governor said.

(Writing by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Angus MacSwan)

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