MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday battled a major cross-border incursion from Ukraine for a second day, with several thousand civilians evacuated due to fighting, officials said.

The incursion began on Tuesday, with hundreds of soldiers and over two dozen armoured vehicles including tanks crossing from Ukraine into the western Kursk region, the Russian army said. Russia said it launched air and artillery firepower to repel the attack, rushing reinforcements to the region to prevent Ukraine from making advances.

The damage was unclear, but President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine had attacked civilian buildings. “The Kyiv regime has undertaken another large-scale provocation,” Putin said in a televised meeting with government officials.

“It is firing indiscriminately from various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, residential houses and ambulances,” he added.

Five civilians have been killed and 24 wounded since the incursion began

At least five civilians have been killed and 24 wounded since the incursion began, 13 of whom have been hospitalised, according to Russian officials. Authorities in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, just across the border from Kursk, announced they were evacuating about 6,000 people, without elaborating.

‘Not everyone can leave’

On the Russian side of the border, authorities evacuated several thousand people and cancelled mass gatherings, Kursk regional head Alexei Smirnov said.

Some Russian military bloggers were reporting Ukrainian troops had reached the town of Sudzha, some eight kilometres from the border, and were shelling it constantly.

The small town of about 5,000 people is home to the Sudzha metering station, the last major transit point for Russian pipeline gas still heading to Europe. A priest in the town, Evgeny Shestopalov, said in a video shared by Russian media that Sudzha was “on fire” and that residents unable to evacuate were sheltering at his church.

“Our church is full of people, children, not everyone has shelters, not everyone can leave,” he said. “There is no transport running, so we are gathering people in the church,” he added.

The Chief of Russia’s General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said up to 1,000 combatants from Ukraine had been involved in the offensive. The Russian defence ministry said hostilities were ongoing, in a statement published around midday, but stressed “the enemy’s movement further into Russian territory had been prevented”.

’Serious attack ’

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the incursion, the most serious in months. A security source in Ukraine said that Kyiv had struck a Russian helicopter using a drone on Tuesday over the Kursk region, but did not link it to the incursion.

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak also alluded to the attacks. Moscow had used its “border regions with impunity for massive air and artillery attacks”, he said on social media.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2024