Vladimir Putin is desperately deploying troops to Russia’s border amid fears that a significant incursion by Ukrainian forces could see them seize or cut off a key nuclear power plant.
Moscow said it had sent reserves to help repel hundreds of Ukrainian fighters backed by tanks, in a ground incursion that is shaping up to be one the largest into Russian territory during the war.
On Tuesday, the Russian army and security agencies were wrong footed by a breakthrough on the Kursk region frontier, which had been guarded by lightly armed conscripts, several of whom were captured.
Kyiv went on to pummel the region with waves of drone attacks overnight, according to the local governor, with defence systems destroying at least five.
Heavy clashes are expected today as forces from Ukraine – possibly both army and anti-Putin Russian partisans – seek to press deeper into the region.
Official Russian social media accounts said up to 300 Ukrainian fighters, backed by tanks, had attacked border units in two localities in Kursk – Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya.
Moscow lost two Ka-52 helicopters – one suspected downed by an FPV drone was shown burning, as Moscow, which daily bombards Ukrainian civilians and territory, raged against a ‘terrorist attack’.
Five people were killed and 28 wounded, and the surprise incursion has reportedly forced Russian authorities to evacuate several border settlements.
There were a flurry of warnings today that Ukraine’s intention behind the unprecedented thrust into Russian territory may be to capture or encircle the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant (NPP).
Such an audacious plan could then use it as a bargaining chip to negotiate with Putin about ceding control of Zaporizhzhia NPP – held by Russia since the start of the war.
Videos reportedly showed the overnight shelling of Kurchatov, the town around the Kursk atomic plant, some 31 miles in a straight line – but further by road – from the Ukrainian incursion across the border.
‘Nuclear blackmail,’ posted Dmitry Rogozin, a senator who was previously Putin’s deputy prime minister and head of the Russian Space Agency.
‘This is something that all the world’s media will definitely trumpet about. That’s what they [the Ukrainians] are counting on.’
He demanded a ruthless response to wipe out Ukrainians crossing the frontier.
War correspondent Yuri Kotenok posted: ‘The nuclear power plant in Kurchatov is an object that has long been the object of desire of the Ukrainian military elite and their curators.’
Despite the warnings, in posts on the Telegram messaging app, the acting governor of the southwestern Russian region, insisted the situation was ‘controllable.’
Ukraine launched several waves of drones, prompting at least a dozen air raid alerts over the past 24 hours, Alexei Smirnov’s posts stated.
Five people were killed, including two ambulance crew, with at least 20 wounded, among them six children, in the fighting that erupted on Tuesday, Russian officials said.
Ukraine made no official comment, though there was evidence of some military action from its side of the border. Both Kyiv and Moscow say their attacks do not target civilians.
The Ukrainian army regularly fires artillery and missiles into Russian territory, and has hit targets deep inside Russia with long-range attack drones, but infantry raids are rare.
The breakthrough into Russia highlighted how Putin had lied to his people over not sending raw conscripts to the war zone and border areas.
Several Russian conscripts were shown on videos after they were captured at border points.
One, Danil Kolesnikov, 22, a private, served in regiment 488, was held guarding the border at Sudzha.
‘I was taken prisoner by Ukrainian troops at the border crossing,’ he said, indicating that he – like others – had been abandoned by their commanders.
Asked by his Ukrainian captors his feelings about Putin and his war, the conscript said: ‘Well, of course… war is always a ****ed up ******* thing. It’s always bad.
‘Especially, in my own Belgorod region… so many corpses, all the s***… it’s not supported.’
Another Maxim Emelyanin, 21, from the distant Komi republic in the far north of Russia, said the conscripts had demanded to be taken away from the border point in line with Putin’s promise on the deployment of conscripts.
But they were left there. Asked if they were abandoned, he said: ‘It goes like this.’
He was asked: ‘How do you feel about your superiors?’ He replied: ‘Negative.’
‘How do you feel about the war in Ukraine?’ to which he said: ‘I have a negative attitude towards the war.
‘And Putin?’ they asked. ‘Putin? I don’t know.’
He said he did ‘not exactly’ support what his president was doing, adding: ‘I had been avoiding the army altogether [but was conscripted in the end].’
Another theory is that Ukraine may seek to disrupt Russian gas exports via Kursk region.
Reports indicated that Ukraine had occupied the settlements of Daryevka, Gogolevka, and Sverdlikovo.
The border town of Sudzha was badly blitzed with most residents evacuating.
Administrative and residential buildings and the infectious diseases department of the city hospital were damaged, reported Izvestia.
Previously, forces describing themselves as voluntary paramilitaries fighting on Ukraine’s side inflicted minimal damage in a major incursion into parts of Belgorod and Kursk region this year, but the purpose of the raids remains unclear.
On Tuesday, Ukraine’s general staff made no mention of any Ukrainian offensive operation inside Russia.
Throughout the more than two years of war, Ukraine’s efforts have largely been focused on fighting back Russian forces who control nearly a fifth of its territory and have made a series of gradual gains in the past six months.
Ukrainian strikes inside Russia’s own territory have mostly involved shelling of border regions and drone attacks on targets such as oil refineries and fuel depots.