No group has claimed responsibility for the ongoing attacks inside Russia’s western Kursk region.
Russian troops are fighting to repel a new cross-border incursion from Ukraine targeting its western Kursk region.
Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov on Aug. 6 posted multiple warnings on the Telegram messaging platform about incoming missile strikes throughout the region, which borders Ukraine. Smirnov later said hundreds of Ukrainian forces and dozens of armored vehicles had pushed across the border and into Russia.
Smirnov and the Russian military have both attributed the Kurk assault to the Ukrainian military, although Ukrainian officials have yet to comment on the incursion.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense has reported directing artillery and airstrikes to repel the attack.
The Russian military said on Aug. 7 that they wounded or killed 260 enemy combatants, and struck 50 armored vehicles, including seven tanks. The Russian military also reported destroying two Buk M1 SAM self-propelled air-defense missile launchers, a mine-clearing vehicle, and an electronic warfare station supporting the cross-border attack.
“The operation to neutralize the [Armed Forces of Ukraine] units is in progress,” the Russian military said on Wednesday.
The Russian leader said he also spoke with Smirnov about the situation and had ordered civilian agencies to assist the residents of the region.
Attacks Inside Russia’s Borders
The fighting in the Kursk region is not the first time Russian forces have had to contend with incursions on their home soil since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2022. Although the war has largely centered around Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and its Black Sea and Azov Sea territories, Ukrainian aircraft, artillery, and drone operators have struck targets inside Russia’s borders throughout the conflict.
The Russian Volunteer Corps (RVC), which presents itself as a group of Ukraine-based Russian citizens opposed to Putin, claimed responsibility for the 2023 Belgorod raids. The RVC also claimed a role in the March 2024 attacks in the Belgorod and Kursk regions, along with two more self-styled Russian dissident groups: the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Siberian Battalion. None of the three groups have claimed responsibility for the recent Kursk assault.
Each of the past cross-border raids has been relatively short-lived.
Rob Lee, a retired U.S. Marine officer and a researcher for the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, cast doubt that this latest Kursk assault will relieve much pressure on Ukrainian forces elsewhere along the front.
Lee assessed that the first cross-border attack on Belgorod last year had caught Russian forces off-guard, but that the second March assault was less successful.
“It is unlikely this operation will have a significant effect on the course of the war, and previous crossborder operations did not have serious domestic political ramifications for Putin,” Lee said.
Russian forces have yet to fully drive back this current Kursk assault, and it remains to be seen how the fighting there will shape the wider conflict, now in its third year.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this article.