Ukraine launches air and ground incursion into Russia: Putin says it is a “provocation”

Ukrainian troops remain on Russian territory on Wednesday, August 7, in the midst of an incursion. The military deployment prompted the evacuation of thousands of people from both sides of the border.

Ukrainian forces entered the Kursk region on Tuesday with up to 1,000 soldiers, a dozen tanks and around 20 armoured vehicles, Moscow said.

The Ukrainian authorities have so far refrained from making any official statements on the operation.

Russian President Vladimir Putindenounced a “large-scale provocation” and claimed that “the kyiv regime” “is firing indiscriminately with various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, homes and ambulances.”

Russian Army Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov told Putin that “The enemy’s advance into the territory was stopped by the air force and artillery,” in a televised meeting.

“Fighting continues in the areas immediately adjacent to the border,” Gerasimov added. “The operation will end with the defeat of the enemy,” he said.

According to the Telegram channel Rybar, which has millions of followers and is close to the Russian military, Ukrainian troops have captured three villages in the Kursk region.

A source in the Ukrainian security services (SBU) told AFP that A small drone destroyed a Russian Mi-28 helicopter in mid-flight, an event “unprecedented in the history of war.”

Since the Russian military operation in Ukraine began in February 2022, Several incursions by pro-Ukrainian fighters took place on Russian soil.

The Russian military claimed to have repelled them on each occasion, but in some cases it was forced to resort to artillery and aircraft, as in the case of the incursion last Tuesday.

The clashes and the bombings caused the evacuation of civilians from both sides of the border.

In Russia, authorities announced that “Thousands” of people had left the border areas, where at least 5 civilians were killed and 28 injured, including children.

In the Ukrainian region of Sumy, opposite the Russian region of Kursk, authorities ordered the “mandatory evacuation” of 23 localities, a measure that affects 6,000 people, including 425 children, according to regional governor Volodymyr Artiukh.

“The situation in the Sumy region is very tense” because of the bombing, he told Ukrainian television.

Acting Governor of the Kursk Region Alexei Smirnov He announced the cancellation of all public events and urged the population to donate blood. to supply the reserves of medical establishments.

This incursion comes after months of intensifying the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine, which is faced with a shortage of supplies and personnel and calls for more help from its Western allies.

Two other Russian regions bordering Ukraine, Voronezh and Belgorod, were also targeted on Wednesday by Ukrainian drone attacks on residential buildings, according to local authorities.

“Two drones attacked a building” in Shebekino, Belgorod, breaking the windows of one apartment and causing a fire in another, he wrote on Telegram. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, adding that “no one was injured.”

In Voronezh, the capital of the Voronezh region, debris from two drones shot down by air defences damaged the facade of one building and shattered the windows of several apartments in another, said its governor Alexander Gusev.