Furious Putin declares Ukrainian attack in border region is ‘a major provocation’

Vladimir Putin has said Ukraine carried out a “large-scale provocation” after a daring surprise attack in the Kursk border region.

According to officials, Russian authorities have already evacuated thousands of civilians and canceled all mass gatherings due to fighting at the border crossing.

“As you know, the regime in Kiev has once again carried out a large-scale provocation,” Putin said during a televised meeting with government officials.

‘Indiscriminate shooting with various types of weapons, including rockets, is taking place at civilian buildings, homes and ambulances.’

Moscow also said it had sent reserves to repel hundreds of Ukrainian fighters, backed by tanks. The ground assault looks set to be one of the largest on Russian soil during the war.

On Tuesday, the Russian military and security services were caught off guard by a breach at the border of the Kursk region, which was guarded by lightly armed conscripts. Several of them were captured.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had deployed air defense and artillery fire in an attempt to push back Ukrainian troops entering the Kursk border region.

“The operation to destroy Ukrainian military units continues,” the Defense Ministry said on social media on Wednesday.

“The enemy has been unable to make further progress into Russian territory,” it added.

Heavy fighting is expected today as Ukrainian forces — possibly both the army and anti-Putin Russian partisans — push deeper into the region.

Kursk region Governor Alexei Smirnov said “several thousand” people had been evacuated from the region and all mass gatherings had been cancelled.

“Over the past day, with our help, several thousand people have left the shelling area using their own vehicles,” Smirnov said in a video message on Telegram.

But he added: “The situation in the region is under control.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to support the region “on all fronts,” he said in the video.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the raid, the most serious in months.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak alluded to the attacks on social media, without naming them specifically. Moscow had used its “border regions for massive air and artillery strikes with impunity,” he said.

According to official Russian social media, some 300 Ukrainian fighters, backed by tanks, attacked border troops in two towns in Kursk: Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya.

Moscow lost two Ka-52 helicopters. One was probably shot down by an FPV drone and was filmed burning. Moscow, which bombs Ukrainian citizens and territory daily, is furious about a “terrorist attack”.

According to the local governor, the region was hit by waves of drone attacks overnight, destroying at least five defense systems.

Five people were killed and 28 injured. The surprise attack reportedly forced Russian authorities to evacuate several border settlements.

According to the Ministry of Defense, 260 soldiers and 50 armored vehicles were killed on the Ukrainian side, including seven tanks and eight armored personnel carriers.

There were a flood of warnings today that Ukraine may be attempting to seize or surround the Kursk nuclear power plant with an unprecedented attack on Russian territory.

Such a bold plan could then serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Putin over ceding control of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which has been in Russia’s hands since the beginning of the war.

According to reports, video footage shows Kurchatov being shelled at night. Kurchatov is a city around the Kursk nuclear power plant. This city is about 50 kilometers in a straight line, but further by road, from the Ukrainian border invasion.

“Nuclear blackmail,” wrote Dmitry Rogozin, a senator who previously served as Putin’s deputy prime minister and head of the Russian space agency.

‘This is something that all the media in the world will absolutely be trumpeting about. That’s what they [the Ukrainians] count on.’

He demanded a ruthless response to exterminate all Ukrainians crossing the border.

War correspondent Yuri Kotenok wrote: ‘The Kurchatov nuclear power plant is an object that has long been the object of desire of the Ukrainian military elite and its curators.’

Despite the warnings, the acting governor of the region in southwestern Russia continued to insist in messages on the Telegram messaging app that the situation was “manageable.”

Ukraine has deployed multiple waves of drones over the past 24 hours, triggering at least a dozen airstrike warnings, Alexei Smirnov said in the messages.

Five people were killed, including two ambulance workers, and at least 20 were injured, including six children, in the fighting that broke out on Tuesday, Russian officials said.

Ukraine made no official comment, despite evidence of military action on its side of the border. Both Kiev and Moscow say their strikes do not target civilians.

The Ukrainian military regularly fires artillery and rockets into Russian territory and has attacked targets deep inside Russia with long-range attack drones. Infantry attacks, however, are rare.

The breakthrough in Russia exposed how Putin had lied to his people by not sending conscripts to the war zone and border areas.

Video footage shows several Russian conscripts after they were arrested at border crossings.

One of them, Danil Kolesnikov, 22 years old, a soldier, served in regiment 488 and was detained for guarding the border near Sudzha.

“I was captured by Ukrainian troops at the border crossing,” he said, indicating that he – like others – had been abandoned by their commanders.

Asked by his Ukrainian captors about his feelings about Putin and his war, the conscript said: ‘Well, of course… war is always a ****ed up ******* thing. It’s always bad.

‘Especially in my own region of Belgorod… so many corpses, all that shit… it is not supported.’

Another Maxim Emelyanin, 21, from the distant Komi Republic in Russia’s far north, said the conscripts had demanded to be removed from the border post, in line with Putin’s promise on the use of conscripts.

But they were left there. Asked if they were abandoned, he said, “That’s how it goes.”

He was asked, “What do you think of your superiors?” He replied, “Negative.”

“What do you think about the war in Ukraine?”, to which he replied: “I have a negative attitude towards the war.

“And Putin?” they asked. “Putin? I don’t know.”

He said he “didn’t particularly” support what his president was doing, adding: “I would have avoided the military altogether [but was conscripted in the end].

Another theory is that Ukraine wants to disrupt Russian gas exports through the Kursk region.

According to reports, Ukraine had occupied the settlements of Daryevka, Gogolevka and Sverdlikovo.

The border town of Sudzha was badly hit and most of its residents were evacuated.

According to Izvestia, the administrative and residential buildings and the infectious diseases department of the city hospital were damaged.

Earlier, forces describing themselves as volunteer paramilitaries fighting on the Ukrainian side caused minimal damage in a major raid this year on parts of Belgorod and the Kursk region. The purpose of the raids remains unclear, however.

The Ukrainian General Staff made no mention of a Ukrainian offensive operation in Russia on Tuesday.

During the more than two-year war, Ukraine’s efforts have been focused on fighting Russian forces, which control nearly a fifth of the country’s territory and have gradually gained ground over the past six months.

Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory consisted mainly of shelling of border areas and drone attacks on targets such as oil refineries and fuel depots.