Kursk Raid: Russia Forced to Send in Reserves as Ukraine Takes Villages

Russia transferred reserve troops to one of its border regions and repelled Ukrainian attacks after Kyiv's soldiers crossed over into Kursk early on Tuesday, Russia's government has said. This is despite reports that Ukraine managed to consolidate positions in Russian territory.

Russian soldiers prevented a border breakthrough after Ukraine carried out attacks on the Kursk region, bordering Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, acting regional governor Alexei Smirnov said in a statement early on Tuesday.

Russian military bloggers—accounts often used as indicators of wartime developments but are typically aligned with the Kremlin—had said fierce fighting broke out after Kyiv targeted several sections of the border.

Russia's Defense Ministry then said that Ukraine had attacked the Kursk border settlements of Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya from around 8 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday. The town of Sudzha, which Smirnov described as a target of the cross-border attack, was almost entirely evacuated, Russian Telegram channels reported.

Fighters from Kyiv's 22nd Mechanized Brigade, along with 11 tanks and more than 20 armored vehicles, crossed over into Russia, the Kremlin said. Moscow repelled the attack, moving Russian reserve troops to the area of the clash.

Yet Russian military bloggers said on Wednesday that attempts to fend off the Ukrainian raid had failed. "By nightfall, it became finally clear that it was impossible to dislodge the foe forces from the territory they had occupied," one prominent Russian military blogger wrote on the Telegram messaging app. "The upcoming day will be heavy."

Another account described a difficult situation in Kursk, with Ukraine managing to "consolidate their positions in the border zone, despite intensive strikes and attacks by Russian troops."

Russian jets attacked Ukrainian positions in Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, to the southwest of Kursk, Moscow said.

"The tense situation remains in the village of Oleshnya—there, Russian servicemen are almost completely surrounded and are engaged in fierce battles with a numerically superior enemy," the influential Rybar military account wrote early on Wednesday.

Andrii Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine's national security and defense council, said the Kremlin was "lying about the controllability of the situation in the Kursk region."

"Russia does not control the border," Kovalenko said in a statement.

The border regions of Russia, including Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk, that look over northeastern Ukraine regularly feel the effects of Moscow's full-scale invasion. These regions have consistently reported cross-border shelling and Ukrainian drone attacks in the nearly two and a half years of war.

Earlier this year, anti-Kremlin, Ukraine-based Russian organizations said they launched an incursion into Belgorod and Kursk from Ukrainian territory. Moscow blamed the flares of fighting on the border on Ukrainian "terrorist formations."

Kyiv said at the time that the organizations, including the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion, were not official Ukrainian organizations but that Ukraine would "try and help them as much as we can."

The Freedom of Russia Legion and Ukraine's 22nd Mechanized Brigade declined to comment on Tuesday's cross-border raid to The Associated Press.

Russia said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces in Kursk had lost six tanks, two infantry fighting vehicles, and eight other vehicles in the assault.

Open-source intelligence accounts indicated Russian trailers carrying tanks near the border had been destroyed, as well as a Ka-52 attack helicopter. Others indicated Russia had lost two tanks.

Reports also suggested Ukraine had lost an air defense system, several armored vehicles and a Stryker armored personnel carrier. It is not possible to independently verify these reports.

In a separate statement on Wednesday morning, Russia's Defense Ministry said it had intercepted four Ukrainian drones over Kursk during the night, as well as three in the neighboring Belgorod region, two over Rostov and a further two over Voronezh.

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