(AFP) Moscow launched “counter-terrorist operations” in three border regions adjacent to Ukraine on Saturday in a bid to thwart Kiev’s biggest cross-border attack in the two-and-a-half-year conflict.
In a shock attack on Tuesday morning, Ukrainian forces crossed the border into Russia’s western Kursk region and advanced several kilometers, independent analysts said.
The Russian military has rushed in additional troops and equipment, including tanks, rocket launchers and air units, but neither side has given precise details about the size of their forces.
At least 3,000 civilians were evacuated from the Russian border, emergency aid and medical supplies were delivered by ferries, and extra trains were sent to the capital, Moscow, for those wanting to evacuate.
“War has come to us,” one woman who fled the border area told AFP at a Moscow train station on Friday, refusing to give her name.
The Russian military said Ukraine initially sent about 1,000 soldiers and more than 20 armored fighting vehicles and tanks, but later claimed to have destroyed about five times that amount of military equipment.
Ukraine claims successful attack on oil depot on Russian soilhttps://t.co/jrqlzv0MCl
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 28, 2024
AFP could not verify the figures, but both sides have been repeatedly accused of exaggerating enemy losses and downplaying their own defeats.
Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee announced late on Friday that it was launching anti-terrorism operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions “to ensure the safety of our citizens and to reduce the threat of terrorist acts by enemy sabotage groups.”
Security forces and the military are given broad emergency powers during “counter-terrorism” operations.
Movement will be restricted, vehicles will be impounded, calls will be monitored, exclusion zones will be declared, checkpoints will be introduced and security at key infrastructure sites will be stepped up.
The Counterterrorism Committee said Ukraine had made “unprecedented attempts to destabilize the situation in many parts of our country.”
The ministry called the incursion into Ukraine a “terrorist attack” and said Kiev forces had injured civilians and destroyed homes.
The Health Ministry said Friday that 55 civilians were hospitalized, 12 of them in serious condition.
Several Russian media outlets shared a video purportedly showing residents of the Suzha district of Kursk city, the focus of the Ukrainian military offensive, pleading for help from President Vladimir Putin, warning that many were unable to evacuate.
Russia claims clashes with Ukrainian forces on Russian territory https://t.co/lwYnA6JVUx
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) August 8, 2024
Russia appeared to strike back at the incursion on Friday, launching a missile attack on a supermarket in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kostyantynivka, killing at least 14 people.
A U.S. warfare research institute said Saturday that Ukrainian forces appeared to have penetrated about 13 kilometers (8 miles) into Russian territory, but cautioned that it was difficult to determine the location of Ukrainian forces.
Ukrainian leaders have remained tight-lipped about the operation.
The United States, Kiev’s closest ally, said it had not been informed of the plans in advance.
But President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to tout his troops’ early successes, saying earlier this week that Russia needed to “feel” the results of its all-out offensive, which launched in February 2022.
On Friday, he also thanked the Ukrainian military for “replenishing the exchange fund,” a reference to captured Russian soldiers who could later be exchanged for captured Ukrainians.
“This is extremely important and has been particularly effective over the past three days,” he said, without specifically mentioning the Kursk invasion.
Russian military bloggers, who typically post more open, detailed and timely information than Moscow’s Defense Ministry, have previously reported that several Russian soldiers had been taken prisoner by Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday it had sent more troops to the border area and on Saturday released footage of tank shelling of Ukrainian military positions in the Kursk region and nighttime air strikes.
Elsewhere on the front line, Ukrainian authorities said two people were killed in the northeastern Kharkiv region and one in the city of Kramatorsk.
The Ukrainian military reported Saturday that the number of “battles” inside Ukraine had decreased, suggesting that the push into Russia may be helping to ease pressure on other parts of the vast front along which Moscow’s forces have been advancing.
