By T. David, Lagos
Russian forces retaliated against Ukrainian troops on Tuesday, deploying missiles, drones, and airstrikes to halt Ukraine’s advance. This counteroffensive follows Ukraine’s most significant incursion into sovereign Russian territory since the war’s outbreak.
A week prior, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers launched a surprise attack across the Russian border. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested this manoeuvre aimed to bolster Kyiv’s negotiating position and hinder Russia’s frontline advancements.
The Ukrainian incursion secured a portion of Russian territory, forcing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 civilians while Moscow deployed reinforcements, Reuters reports.
Despite intense battles across the Kursk front as Ukrainians attempted to expand their control, Russian war bloggers indicated that reinforcements and heavy weaponry had repelled many Ukrainian attacks.
Russia’s defence ministry released images of Sukhoi Su-34 bombers targeting Ukrainian troops within the Kursk border region, claiming successful repulsions of attacks on villages approximately 26-28 km from the border.
Over the week-long conflict, Russian forces purportedly destroyed 35 Ukrainian tanks, 31 armoured personnel carriers, 18 infantry fighting vehicles, and 179 other armoured vehicles.
“The uncontrolled ride of the enemy has already been halted,” stated Major General Apti Alaudinov, commander of the Chechen Akhmat special forces unit. “The enemy is already aware that the blitzkrieg that it planned did not work out.”
The control of Sudzha, a Russian town through which Gazprom transports gas from Western Siberia to Slovakia and other European Union countries via Ukraine, remains unclear. Gazprom confirmed uninterrupted gas flow to Ukraine through Sudzha on Tuesday.
While Kursk’s acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, reported Ukrainian control of 28 settlements within a 12 km deep and 40 km wide incursion, Ukraine claimed control over 1,000 square km of Russian territory, exceeding Russian figures.
Following Russia’s 2022 invasion, Western leaders pledged support for Ukraine’s efforts to repel and expel Russian troops. Despite recapturing significant territory in 2022, Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive has struggled against entrenched Russian defences, allowing Russia to advance further into Ukrainian territory. Currently, Russia occupies slightly less than one-fifth of internationally recognised Ukrainian territory.