Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of a “major provocation” after Moscow said it was battling a major cross-border attack on the southwestern Kursk region.
Alexey Smirnov, the region’s acting governor, said he had introduced a state of emergency amid two days of fierce fighting.
The Ministry of Health said 31 civilians, including six children, had been injured on Wednesday. Smirnov said the day before that five people had been killed as Ukrainian troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles breached the border.
Russia did not provide any information on military casualties.
“The Kyiv regime has launched another major provocation,” Putin told Russian government officials on Wednesday, referring to the attack in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.
Ukraine has not commented directly on the attack, but Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian forces were pushing to the northwest of the border town of Sudzha, 530km (330 miles) southwest of Moscow.
Russia said it used air and artillery firepower to repel the attack throughout Wednesday, after earlier rushing reinforcements to the region.
Witnesses interviewed on Russian television said they had fled border areas in cars under drone fire. A priest in Sudzha, Evgeny Shestopalov, said in a video shared by Russian media, that the town of about 5,000 people was “on fire” and that residents unable to evacuate had taken shelter in his church.
The extent of the damage and the depth of the Ukrainian advance remains unclear, however.
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