A screen shot from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian forces launching a missile attack, targeting military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area near Russia’s Kursk Region on August 8, 2024.
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Thousands of residents have been evacuated and a state of emergency has been declared in Kursk after Ukraine launched a rare incursion into the Russian border region earlier this week.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that its forces in Kursk continued to “destroy armed formations” from Ukraine. Post on Telegramthe ministry claimed that Ukraine’s losses since the start of the Kursk operation amounted to 660 soldiers and 82 armored vehicles, including “eight tanks, 12 armored personnel carriers, six infantry fighting vehicles, 55 armored fighting vehicles and one countermeasures vehicle”.
The number of military vehicles reported is far higher than the ministry’s initial figure that 11 tanks and about 20 armored vehicles were involved in the initial incursion that began on Tuesday.
CNBC was unable to verify the information in the latest post. Neither Russia nor Ukraine publishes death tolls, and both sides have a vested interest in exaggerating the other’s casualties. After initially downplaying the audacious Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, Russia also appears wary of rejecting the apparent new attack on its soil.
This photo released by Kursk Oblast Deputy Governor Alexei Smirnov on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024, shows a damaged house after shelling from the Ukrainian side in the town of Sudzha, Kursk Oblast bordering Ukraine.
Telegraph channel of the Governor of the Kursk region via AP
On Wednesday, deputy regional governor Alexei Smirnov said the “operational situation” in the border region remained “complicated.”
“To eliminate the consequences of the entry of enemy forces into the area, I have decided to declare a state of emergency.” Smirnov said in an update translated by Google on Telegramadding that drone and missile attacks continued overnight.
On Thursday, deputy deputy governor Andrei Belostotsky said about 3,000 people had been evacuated from bombed areas of the region, with four dead, according to comments reported the Russian state news agency Tass.
He also said that the Ukrainian units “hadn’t advanced a single meter”. in comments published by the Russian state news agency Ria Novosti. CNBC was unable to verify the claims.
Russia was surprised
Russia appeared to be caught off guard when the incursion began on Tuesday with the Russian Defense Ministry appearing to play down its significance, attributing it to a “sabotage and reconnaissance group”. At that point, he said 300 Ukrainian soldiers crossed the border in tanks and armored vehicles, entering the country near the town of Shuja, about 400 miles southwest of Moscow. Kursk is located across the border from Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Wednesday that its forces were “destroying armed formations” using air and missile strikes, along with artillery.
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, later told Putin that Russian forces had stopped an attack by 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers – a troop estimate far higher than the initial count provided by the country’s defense ministry.
“The advance of the enemy deep into the ground in the direction of Kursk was stopped by the actions of units covering the state border together with border guards and reinforcement units, with airstrikes, rockets and artillery fire,” Gerasimov said in televised comments reported by the Reuters.
In this pool photo distributed by the Russian state agency Sputnik, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Valery Gerasimov is seen on screen as he remotely participates in a meeting with the heads of law enforcement agencies to address the situation in the Kursk region on August 7, 2024.
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Ukrainian authorities have made no public comment on the incursion. CNBC requested further information from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak claimed Thursday that Russia’s aggression prompted the latest operation.
“The root cause of any escalation, bombing, military actions, forced evacuations and destruction of normal forms of life, including on (Russia’s) territories such as the Kursk and Belgorod regions, is solely Russia’s outright aggression.” Podolyak posted on social networking platform X.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday that the US had not been warned of a Ukrainian invasion, but did not rule out that an attack had taken place.
“We didn’t [know in advance about the Kursk operation]. But it is not unusual for the Ukrainians not to notify us of their exact tactics before executing them. It’s a war they’re waging. We provide them with equipment. We provide them with advice. But when it comes to the kind of daily tactics that they carry out, the daily strikes that they do… it’s appropriate for them to make those decisions,” he told a news conference.
In this pool photo distributed by Russia’s state-run Sputnik agency, Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a remote meeting with the Governor of the Kursk Region via video call in Moscow, Aug. 8, 2024.
Gavriil Grigorov | Afp | Getty Images
Miller said the U.S. is “currently communicating with the Ukrainians about this particular operation” but that it would be inappropriate to comment on “what kind of operations they are conducting and what their goals are. It is appropriate for them to talk about it publicly, not us .”
The State Department spokesman further said that Putin’s description of the invasion as a “provocation” was “a little rich … given that Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty” when it illegally occupied Ukrainian territory since 2014. starting with the annexation of Crimea, in anticipation of the large-scale invasion of February 2022.
Ukraine’s strategy, Russia’s response
Ukraine’s strategy and reasons for conducting a border incursion remain unclear, although some defense analysts have commented that the operation may be an attempt to force Russia to redeploy forces away from eastern Ukraine, where the Russian summer offensive has been gaining ground. terrain.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War estimated on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had confirmed advances of up to 10 kilometers – or about six miles – in the Kursk region “amid ongoing mechanized offensive operations on Russian territory”.
“The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast [region] show that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defense lines and a stronghold,” ISW he said in an analysis.
The institute said that “geographic material published on August 6 and 7 shows that Ukrainian armored vehicles have advanced to positions along the 38K-030 route about 10 kilometers from the international border.”
A video screen shot released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian forces launching a missile attack targeting military equipment of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area of Russia’s Kursk region on August 7, 2024.
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The ISW said the Kremlin’s response to Ukrainian offensive activities in Kursk “has so far been contradictory, as Russian officials try to balance presenting the effort as a notable Ukrainian escalation with avoiding overstating its potential consequences and the risk of domestic discontent.”
“The Kremlin, however, risks discrediting itself among some communities by seemingly dismissing the significance of the attack by calling it only a ‘provocation.’
ISW noted that several Russian military bloggers, often critical of the war and Russia’s tactics and strategy, strongly criticized Russia’s military command for not detecting preparations for Ukrainian offensive operations in Kursk or preventing the initiative.
A screen shot from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows Russian forces launching a missile attack, targeting military equipment of Ukrainian forces in the border region in the Kursk region of Russia on August 8, 2024.
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The vice chairman of Russia’s Security Council and known hawk Dmitry Medvedev called on Russian forces to crush the Ukrainian units in Kursk.
“We must learn a serious lesson from what happened and do what Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov pledged to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to do, which is to decisively defeat and crush the enemy.” he stated on Telegramaccording to google translation.
