James Reynolds “X” and AFP – Vladimir Putin has sent troops to repel hundreds of soldiers, tanks and armored vehicles that have stormed across Russia’s border in what Moscow claimed was a Ukrainian attack.
Moscow’s defence ministry said it has rushed troops and aviation units to the southwestern region after Ukrainian units allegedly tried to attack Russian positions just inside the border, according to Russian officials.
‘Border defence troops, together with military units of the FSB border force, are repelling attacks and inflicting fire damage on the enemy,’ the defence ministry said in a statement Tuesday.
Russia claims Ukraine launched the foray early this morning with as many as 300 troops, 11 tanks and more than 20 armoured combat vehicles, claiming to have struck back with airstrikes.
Intense footage appeared to show explosions hitting the ground from a driver’s window some eight miles inside the Russian border today.
Another clip showed a fighter jet tearing through the sky towards black smoke billowing up ahead. The plumes appeared to be coming from the shell of a burnt out lorry in the road.
The Russian governor of the Kursk region said three people had been killed by Ukrainian forces throughout the day – a woman in the attempted border incursion and two people whose vehicles were hit in separate drone attacks.
‘The situation in the border area remains difficult, but our defenders are successfully working to destroy the enemy,’ Alexei Smirnov added.
In a series of updates on social media, Smirnov said two Russian civilians had been killed, one by shelling and the other by a drone, and 18 others were wounded.
The defence ministry said the attack was focused on the settlements of Nikolaevo-Darino and Oleshnya – just across from Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
The Russian reports could not be independently verified. Disinformation and propaganda have played a central role in the war, now in its third year.
Responsibility for previous incursions, into Russia’s Belgorod and Bryansk regions, have been claimed by two murky groups: the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Ukraine did not comment on the reports but the head of the Sumy region military administration, Oleksiy Drozdenko, told residents to pay attention to air raid alerts.
Ukrainian forces said there was ‘cynical shelling’ of border settlements in the Sumy and neighbouring Chernigiv regions.
Ukraine’s general staff, in a regular update on Tuesday, also reported Russian strikes on border villages but did not mention any Ukrainian offensive operation.
A source in the Ukrainian National Defence Council, Andrii Kovalenko, said: ‘Russian war correspondents are lying about the controllability of the situation in the Kursk region.
‘Russia does not control the border.’
Hours after a Russian regional governor said the attackers had been pushed back, the Russian defense ministry issued a statement saying that fighting was still going on.
‘Troops covering the state border, together with units of the border troops of the FSB (security service) of Russia, are repelling attacks and inflicting fire on the enemy in the area of the state border and on (Ukrainian) reserves in the Sumy region,’ the statement said.
It said Russia was using warplanes to strike Ukrainian armoured vehicles, and had moved its own reserves into the area of the fighting.
Russian authorities also said today that Ukrainian ‘saboteurs’ had attempted a landing by sea on the Russian-held Tendra Spit in southern Ukraine.
‘According to preliminary information, 12 high-speed craft were used – eight of them with the saboteurs and four with fire support,’ Moscow-appointed governor Vladimir Saldo said on social media.
‘Russian marines opened fire as the boats were approaching the Tendra Spit. Three boats were destroyed with their crews and sank. The others turned back,’ Saldo said.
Combatants from Ukraine have made several brief incursions into Russia since the beginning of the conflict, including with units of Russians fighting in support of Kyiv – the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Russia has pushed back against the attacks and has sometimes needed to deploy artillery and aviation.
Ukraine’s main military effort is focused on fighting back Russian forces who control nearly a fifth of its territory after almost two-and-a-half years of war and have made a series of gradual gains in the past six months.
Ukrainian strikes inside Russia’s own territory have mostly involved shelling of border regions and drone attacks on targets such as oil refineries and fuel depots.
A Russian missile attack on the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine damaged a medical clinic and injured at least five people on Tuesday, the governor of the Kharkiv
