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A convoy of Ukrainian armoured vehicles carrying jubilant troops was captured trundling through Russia’s Kursk region in a fresh humiliation for Vladimir Putin after Volodymyr Zelensky‘s forces launched a surprise assault earlier this week.
Tanks, armoured personnel carriers, a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle and other army equipment were seen surging through a rural area in footage taken by a Ukrainian mortar position and shared to Telegram this morning.
Kyiv’s forces stormed across the border on Tuesday morning, deploying around 1,000 troops and more than two dozen armoured vehicles and tanks in an unexpected assault on Russian soil, according to the Russian army.
Thousands of Russians are evacuating the region amid complaints that Putin’s armed and security forces have failed to protect them.
The key gas transit town of Sudzha is under partial Ukrainian control and almost ringed by its forces as Kyiv’s troops advanced up to six miles into Russian territory – the most serious border incursion of the conflict so far, the Institute for the Study of War said today.
Ukraine’s objectives have not been spelled out, though Russian commentators but fear an aim could be to reach Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, a major strategic asset.
The power plant is located some 40 miles from Sudzha, which itself is roughly five miles across the border from Ukraine.
A convoy of Ukrainian military equipment including tanks, armoured personnel carriers, a UR-77 mine-clearing vehicle, and other army machinery enters Russia
A mine-clearing vehicle drives past a Ukrainian mortar position on Russian soil
A tank adorned with an anti-drone net is seen trundling into Russia
There have been scant updates on the conflict from officials in Moscow.
But Russian military bloggers, who have links to the army, also reported Kyiv had made significant advances and lamented deteriorating circumstances.
‘The situation is complicated and continues to worsen,’ blogger Yury Podolyaka said in a post on Telegram.
He said the town of Sudzha was ‘full of Ukrainian soldiers’.
‘Sudzha has been completely lost,’ he said.
‘The enemy is entrenching, indicating that the fighting is likely to be long-term,’ the Dva Mayora Telegram channel said.
This contradicts Russian military chief Valery Gerasimov who said that the incursion by 1,000 Ukrainian troops had been halted.
About 42 million cubic metres of Russian gas passes through Sudzha and onward into Ukraine every day, with the town home to a key gas metering hub.
There were also reports that Ukrainian troops had taken hundreds of Russian soldiers and border guards prisoner during this week’s surprise incursion.
Some reports said Ukraine had detained as many as 300 Russian servicemen in total, and that Kyiv‘s forces have penetrated almost 20 miles inside Putin’s country, with fighting around the town of Korenevo.
Among those held are Russia‘s 225th Assault Brigade, shown in footage with their hands bound.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds a meeting with members of the government at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow, Russia, 07 August 2024
Russian military bloggers, who have links to the army, also reported Kyiv had made significant advances and lamented deteriorating circumstances
Russian officials said Wednesday they were fighting off Ukrainian cross-border raids in a southwestern border province for a second day, as Kyiv officials remained quiet about the scope of the operation
Ukraine’s objectives have not been spelled out but the Russians fear an aim could be to reach Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, a major strategic asset.
This photo released by the acting Governor of Kursk region Alexei Smirnov telegram channel on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, shows a damaged house after shelled by the Ukrainian side in the city of Sudzha
Close Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev today lashed out at Ukraine for the incursion – which shocked and wrong footed Moscow – and demanded Russia respond by crushing Ukraine.
It was now ‘necessary’ to ‘mercilessly defeat and destroy the enemy’, and stage a total invasion, the former Russian president said.
‘From now on, the [war] must acquire an openly extraterritorial character. This is no longer just an operation to return our official territories and punish the [Ukrainian] Nazis.
‘We can and must go to the lands of the still existing Ukraine. To Odesa, to Kharkiv, to Dnipro, to Mykolaiv [all cities now held by Ukraine].
‘There should be no restrictions in the sense of some borders of the Ukrainian Reich recognised by anyone. Now we can and must talk about this openly, without embarrassment and diplomatic curtseys.’
The invasion of a border area of Kursk region ‘must remove any taboos…
‘Let everyone, including the English b*******, realise this: we will stop only when we consider it acceptable and beneficial for ourselves.’
Russia has now sent a general to the new war zone in Kursk region – Major-General Apty Alaudinov, commander of the Akhmat [Chechen] special forces, who vowed to fight back and defeat the Ukrainians.
‘The enemy has entered the border territories,’ he said. ‘Several settlements are occupied by the enemy. He is trying to advance as much as possible, building up all his forces, which he has moved from the Belarusian border.
‘God willing, this issue will be resolved, these forces will be destroyed,’ he said.
‘The [war] this year will end with Russia’s victory. Those who believe in God do not doubt it, as I do not doubt it. The enemy who will be watching us now: Hello to him, because I think these days are his last in his life.’
A view shows a damaged house following what local authorities called a Ukrainian military strike, in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the town of Sudzha in the Kursk Region, Russia, in this handout image released August 6, 2024
This handout photograph released by the Kursk Region Governor Alexei Smirnov in his Telegram channel shows damages in the town of Sudzha on August 6, 2024, caused by shelling from Ukranian forces in Russia’s Kursk Region
About 42 million cubic metres of Russian gas passes through Sudzha and onward into Ukraine every day, with the town home to a key gas metering hub
A pregnant Russian woman Nina Kuznetsova, 28, was killed as she and her husband, their young child and her mother sought to flee Sudzha in two cars.
‘I heard shots, bangs… It turned out that they were shooting at me,’ he said.
‘I managed to drive past, but my wife didn’t.
‘I stopped, she crashed into me. I opened the door, and Nina was already wheezing.
‘We went to the hospital. They tried to revive her, but it didn’t work. The bullet entered the lung and exited through the heart.’
Meanwhile, widespread reports of the death of well-known Russian state-controlled propaganda TV war reporter Yevgeny Poddubny in Kursk region proved false after a drone strike by the Ukrainians.
He is in a ‘serious condition’ after a Ukrainian drone strike in Kursk with head wounds and burns.
Footage showed the reporter being stretchered to hospital before being transported to Moscow for treatment.
