By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops for a third day on Thursday after they smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region, an audacious attack on the world’s biggest nuclear power that has forced Moscow to call in reserves.
In one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks on Russia of the two-year war, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug. 6 with tanks and armoured vehicles, covered in the air by swarms of drones and pounding artillery, according to Russian officials.
Ukrainian forces swept through the fields and forests of the border towards the north of the border town of Sudzha, the last operational trans-shipping point for Russian to Europe via Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin cast the attack as a “major provocation”. The White House said the United States – Ukraine’s biggest backer – had no prior knowledge of the attack and would seek more details from Kyiv.
Russia’s most senior general, chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin on Wednesday that the Ukrainian offensive had been halted in the border area.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that the army and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had halted the Ukrainian advance and were battling Ukrainian units in the Kursk region.
“Units of the Northern group of forces, together with the FSB of Russia, continue to destroy armed formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Sudzhensky and Korenevsky districts of the Kursk region, directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border,” the ministry said.
It said Ukraine had lost 82 armoured vehicles including eight tanks in the attack.
The Ukrainian army has remained silent on the Kursk offensive.
Some Russian bloggers criticised the state of border defences in the Kursk region, saying it had been far too easy for Ukrainian forces to slice through them.
“The enemy passed through our line of defence quite easily,” said Yuri Podolyaka, a popular Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, adding that no complete defensive work had been prepared in the Kursk region despite the ongoing conflict.
CRITICAL JUNCTURE
The battles around Sudzha come at a crucial juncture in the conflict, the biggest land war in Europe since World War Two. Kyiv is concerned that U.S. support could drop off if Republican Donald Trump wins the November presidential election.
Trump has said he would end the war, and both Russia and Ukraine are keen to gain…
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