Russian forces are reportedly fighting to repel a cross-border incursion in its Kursk region that began on Aug. 6.
Unconfirmed footage of the purported offensive began to spread across social media sites on Tuesday. Russia’s military has since picked up on the reports.
Russia’s Kursk region sits directly across the border from Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, and Russian forces have attributed the attack to Ukrainian military units. The Ukrainian government, for its part, hasn’t commented directly on the fighting across the border in the Kursk region.
Photos and videos purported to show the damage brought by fighting in Russian borders villages in the Kursk region.
Some social media posts have suggested Russian paramilitary forces opposed to the Russian government are leading the attack. The Ukraine-based Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL), the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Sibir Battalion have claimed responsibility for similar cross-border raids from Ukraine into Russia in throughout the spring and summer of 2023 and again in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in March of this year.
Other posts have suggested elements of Ukraine’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade are also supporting this latest incursion.
As of Wednesday, Aug. 7, some social media accounts are reporting the cross-border raiders have entered 11 different Russian villages and captured a band of territory covering 15km.
For its part, the Russian military has reported killing hundreds of the cross-border raiders and destroying dozens of their military vehicles.
“The enemy’s losses during the past 24 hours amounted to up to 260 militants and 50 armoured vehicles, including seven tanks, eight armoured personnel carriers, three infantry fighting vehicles, 31 armoured fighting vehicles, with 12 Kozak vehicles, two Stryker vehicles, one counterobstacle vehicle, and six motor vehicles among them,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday. “Moreover, two Buk M1 SAM self-propelled launchers, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, and one electronic warfare station have been annihilated. The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.”
Footage posted online appeared to purported to corroborate some of the Russian military’s claims.
Russian forces have repelled past cross-border incursions of this nature. Some online commentators suggested this latest assault in the Kursk region offers little strategic upside to Ukraine, and risks exhausting critical military resources and manpower.
Rob Lee, a veteran U.S. Marine infantry officer and researcher at the Foreign Policy Research Institute said the prior two cross-border raids into Russia had little efficacy and didn’t force Russia to pull a significant number of its troops away from frontline fighting in Ukraine. Following the first 2023 raids, Lee said subsequent cross-border attacks have had diminishing success.
Lee also postulated that Ukraine’s military wouldn’t be able to support the cross-border raid with U.S.-donated long-range strike systems.
The Biden administration recently permitted Ukrainian forces to use U.S.-donated weapons systems to strike positions in Russia that are used to attack Ukrainian territory. Still, the Biden administration has characterized this position as an extension of Ukraine’s defense, rather than broad permission to attack inside Russia.
“A limited operation might be able to achieve limited goals, but a more ambitious operation carries greater risks. 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 wrote on Tuesday.
This article was originally published by FreeBase News and is reprinted with permission.
