Russian forces push back on Ukrainian incursion in Kursk region

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday convened a meeting of Kremlin officials to address the incursion, Russian state media outlet TASS reported. Ukrainian forces assaulted the Kursk region on Tuesday with ground troops, artillery, and drone strikes. At least five Russian civilians in the region died from the attack and 24 more suffered injuries, TASS reported. Six of the injured were children, according to Russian state media.

The operation was a Ukrainian attempt to portray positive activity on the battlefield amid rampant failures and setbacks, Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. She characterized the Ukrainian forces who crossed Russian lines as neo-Nazis and alleged Kyiv was trying to sow panic among Russian citizens. She insisted Russian forces had halted Ukraine’s advance.

What’s going on, from a battlefield-level perspective? As many as 1,000 Ukrainian troops took part in the operation, piercing the Russian front line in several locations using armored vehicles and tanks, according to Kremlin-run news outlet RT. Russian forces drenched the advancing Ukrainian troops with artillery and mortar strikes, and managed to halt their advance as of Wednesday. Ukrainian forces have lost several hundred troops and dozens of armored vehicles so far during the operation, according to both TASS and RT.

Has Ukraine said anything about this? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday praised Ukrainian forces' defense against Russian attacks in the areas of Pokrovsk, Toretsk, Lyman, and Kharkiv. He did not explicitly address the advance into Russia. He did say that it was important to keep destroying the Kremlin’s forces and that the more pressure Ukraine put on Russia the closer to peace the two countries would get.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how Ukraine just received F-16s from the United States and its allies.