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Russia said it had regained control of the settlement of Krupets in the Kursk region. | (Photo: Representative/ Reuters)
Russia said on Thursday that it would beef up border defences, improve command and control and send in additional forces nearly 10 days after Ukraine made the biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since World War Two.
The lightning incursion into Russia unfurled on Aug. 6 when thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed through Russia’s western border in a major embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin’s top military brass.
Russia’s military, ranked as one of the most powerful alongside the United States and China, has yet to explain in public how Ukrainian forces were able to carve out a slice of the world’s biggest nuclear power.
Putin’s defence minister, Andrei Belousov, said the general staff had prepared a series of measures to defend Russia’s border regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod – which cover an area the size of Portugal.
“First of all, we are talking about improving the effectiveness of the command and control system in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies,” Belousov was shown telling top generals and officials from the Belgorod region.
Belousov, appointed by Putin in May, said Russia was “allocating additional forces and funds” to ensure the integrity and inviolability of Russian territory.
While the Ukrainian attack has revealed weaknesses in Russia’s border defences and changed the public narrative of the conflict, Russian officials said what they cast as a Ukrainian “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war.
Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, has been advancing for most of the year along the 1000-km (620-mile) front in Ukraine and has a vast numerical superiority. It controls 18% of Ukraine.
WAR
On the ground in the Kursk region, where Ukraine has carved out at least 450 square km (175 square miles) of Russian territory, both Ukraine and Russia claimed successes.
Russia said it had regained control of the settlement of Krupets in the Kursk region.
“We have burned everything that moves, everything that we have been able to find,” Major General Apti Alaudinov, who commands Chechnya’s Akhmat special forces who are fighting in Kursk.
Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine had advanced 1.5 km over the past 24 hours and had set up a military commandant’s office to ensure order.
A source in the Ukrainian Security Service said a group of more than 100 Russian soldiers had been captured. Separately, a Ukrainian minister said Kyiv was carving out a buffer zone to protect its population against attack.
By bringing the war to Russia, Zelenskiy faces the risk of weakening Kyiv’s defences along the front.
Ukraine said there was no sign Russian military pressure was receding along the eastern front, and reported the heaviest fighting in weeks near Pokrovsk. Russia said it had taken control of a village just 16 km (10 miles) from the city, which sits abreast of major roads that supply Ukrainian forces in the area.
WESTERN WEAPONS
The West, which backs Ukraine and has said it will not allow Putin to win the war, has repeatedly said it knew nothing of the Ukrainian plans to attack Russia. Russian officials say they do not believe such statements.
Putin said on Monday that Ukraine “with the help of its Western masters” was aiming to improve Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible peace talks.
Russia’s defence ministry published footage which it said showed a Russian drone destroying a U.S.-made Stryker armoured combat vehicle in the Kursk region.
Russian officials have warned that if Western weapons were used on Russian territory, then Moscow would consider that a grave escalation.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Aug 15 2024 | 10:41 PM IST
