Russia continues to fight Ukrainian incursion into Kursk border region
Russia is continuing to fight a Ukrainian incursion launched the day before in Kursk, a region bordering Ukraine where five civilians were killed and thousands of others evacuated due to fighting and shelling, official sources said Wednesday.
According to Moscow, Ukrainian forces entered the region on Tuesday with some 300 soldiers, a dozen tanks and about 20 other armoured vehicles.
For its part, Kiev has been largely silent on the operation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced a "large-scale provocation" and said that "the Kiev regime" is "firing indiscriminately with various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, houses and ambulances".
The leader is expected to meet later on Wednesday with the heads of the security forces and the army.
The Russian defence ministry said that "the operation to destroy Ukrainian army formations is continuing", more than 24 hours after the start of the incursion.
Clashes continued "overnight" in areas "immediately adjacent to the border", it added.
The ministry claimed on Telegram that Russian soldiers "prevented the enemy from advancing deep into Russian territory", apparently acknowledging that Ukrainian soldiers gained ground during the operation.
According to the Telegram channel Rybar, which has millions of followers and is close to the Russian military, Ukrainian troops seized 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 the war".
Thousands evacuated
Several thousand people evacuated the area due to the fighting and shelling, which left at least five civilians dead and 28 wounded, local authorities said.
According to the Russian Health Ministry, 13 people - including three minors - were hospitalised in the region after Ukrainian shelling.
The Ukrainian authorities are keeping almost completely silent on the situation in Kursk and several senior officials asked by AFP declined to comment.
Sergey Zgurets, a Ukrainian military expert, said the Ukrainian army appears to be trying to divert Russian forces from other sectors of the frontline, where they have been pressing for several months.
The geography of this part of Russia makes it possible "to effectively carry out this kind of deterrent action against the enemy with a small device, and this is probably what the Ukrainian army is doing," he told AFP.
Drone attacks
Two other Russian regions bordering Ukraine, Voronezh and Belgorod, were also targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks on residential buildings on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
"Two drones attacked a building" in Chebekino in Belgorod, smashing the windows of one flat and setting fire to another, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram, saying "no one was injured".
In Voronezh, capital of the Voronezh region, the wreckage of two drones shot down by air defence damaged the facade of one building and shattered the windows of several flats in another, governor Alexander Gusev said.
Since the conflict began in February 2022, there have been several incursions into Russia by fighters from Ukraine.
The Russian military claimed to have repelled them each time, but some of them forced it to resort to artillery and aviation, as in the case of Tuesday's incursion.
The operation comes at a time when Kiev forces, short of ammunition and new recruits, have been struggling to contain the advance of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine in recent months.
In May, Russian troops also launched a ground offensive in the border region of Kharkov, where they seized several towns before being held back by the Ukrainian army.