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Ukraine war
WorldRussia & Central Asia

Russia is battling one of the biggest Ukrainian border incursions of the war

  • Russian army chief says 1,000 Ukrainians are fighting inside Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine

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A Russian drone attack on Ukrainian armoured vehicles outside the town of Sudzha, Kursk Region, on Wednesday. Photo: Russian Defence Ministry via AP
Reuters

Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops for a third day on Thursday after they smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region, an audacious attack on the world’s biggest nuclear power that has forced Moscow to call in reserves.

In one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks on Russia of the two-year war, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Tuesday with tanks and armoured vehicles, covered in the air by swarms of drones and pounding artillery, according to Russian officials.

An acting deputy governor of Russia’s Kursk region said the situation in Kursk was “stable and under control” after the Ukrainian incursion this week, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported on Thursday.

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Ukrainian forces swept through the fields and forests of the border towards the north of the border town of Sudzha, the last operational trans-shipping point for Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin cast the attack as a “major provocation”. The White House said the United States – Ukraine’s biggest backer – had no prior knowledge of the attack and would seek more details from Kyiv.

Russia’s most senior general, chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin on Wednesday that the Ukrainian offensive had been halted in the border area.

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