Vladimir Putin has declared that Ukraine carried out a ‘large-scale provocation’ following a daring surprise assault on Russia‘s the border region of Kursk.
ALL-OUT WAR IS LOOMING
Russian authorities have already evacuated several thousand civilians and cancelled all mass gatherings due to fighting in the cross-border incursion, officials said.
‘As you know, the Kyiv regime has undertaken another large-scale provocation,’ Putin said in a televised meeting with government officials.
‘It is firing indiscriminately from various types of weapons, including rockets, at civilian buildings, residential houses and ambulances.’
WORDS FROM MOSCOW
Moscow also said it had sent reserves to help repel hundreds of Ukrainian fighters backed by tanks, in a ground incursion that is shaping up to be one the largest into Russian territory during the war.
On Tuesday, the Russian army and security agencies were wrong footed by a breakthrough on the Kursk region frontier, which had been guarded by lightly armed conscripts, several of whom were captured.
The Russian defence ministry announced it had deployed air and artillery firepower to try to quash Ukrainian troops breaking into the Kursk border region.
‘The operation for the destruction of Ukrainian army units is continuing,’ the defence ministry said on social media Wednesday.
‘The enemy’s movement further into Russian territory has been prevented,’ it added.
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WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW?
Heavy clashes are expected today as forces from Ukraine – possibly both army and anti-Putin Russian partisans – seek to press deeper into the region.
Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov said ‘several thousand’ people had been evacuated from the region and all mass gatherings had been cancelled.
‘Over the course of the last day, with our help, several thousand people left the shelling zone by personal transport,’ Smirnov said in a video message on Telegram.
