(Bloomberg) -- President Vladimir Putin summoned his top defense and security officials to brief him on efforts to repel Ukraine’s biggest assault on Russian territory since he ordered the 2022 invasion of the neighboring country.
As many as 1,000 Ukrainian troops had crossed the border with the goal of seizing part of the Kursk region, army chief Valery Gerasimov told Putin in a televised meeting Wednesday. Russia had deployed troops, air strikes and artillery to prevent an “advance deep into the territory” and fighting was continuing to try to end the offensive, he said.
European natural gas prices jumped on a report from Russia’s unofficial Rybar military blogger that Ukrainian forces had seized the key transit point of Sudzha in the region that carries gas via Ukraine to Europe. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Russia’s state-controlled Gazprom PJSC declined to comment, as did Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. Gazprom said in its daily update earlier that flows were set to be within their normal range, while Ukraine’s transmission system operator said that flows via the country were continuing normally as of 1 p.m. local time.
As Ukraine continues to defend against the invasion that’s now in its third year, it’s been conducting drone strikes targeting Russian infrastructure and industrial capacity alongside military facilities to try to undermine the Kremlin’s war machine. The assault on the Kursk region is among its most audacious so far, though, taking Putin’s war back onto his territory and undermining his claim to be able to guarantee the security of ordinary Russians.
Ukrainian officials have remained tight-lipped on the operation and its possible objectives. A Defense Ministry spokesman declined to comment and the General Staff press service didn’t return calls for comment.
The US hasn’t changed its policy in relation to permitting Ukraine to use American-supplied weapons “to target imminent threats just across the border,” John Kirby, spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council, told reporters Wednesday. Officials would be “reaching out to our Ukrainian counterparts to get a little better understanding” of the situation, he said.
Putin ordered his officials, who included Defense Minister Andrey Belousov and Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu, to report on the situation in Kursk after he accused Ukraine of a “large-scale provocation” in his first public comment on the incursion that began early Tuesday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry had declared soon after the assault started that it involved some 300 Ukrainian troops backed by 11 tanks and more than 20 armored vehicles. After initially saying in a statement that the Ukrainians had retreated across the border with “significant losses,” the ministry later deleted that claim without explanation.
Gerasimov’s report made clear far larger numbers were involved, telling Putin that Russia’s military had destroyed 54 Ukrainian armored vehicles during clashes.
Acting Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov said on Telegram that there’d been “massive” strikes on the border area, and that the Kremlin had sent doctors to assist in treating casualties.
Russian military bloggers had earlier reported Wednesday that Ukrainian troops continued to occupy several border villages and were advancing toward Sudzha.
Drone Attacks
Ukraine reported that its air defenses downed 30 Russian Shahed drones laden with explosives overnight. Russia continued attacks along the frontline and shelled border villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, on the border with Kursk, and neighboring Chernihiv region, the General Staff in Kyiv said.
Officials in Russia’s southern city of Voronezh said Wednesday that 22 apartments, five other buildings and 38 vehicles were damaged by debris from downed Ukrainian drones, according to Tass.
Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions bordering Ukraine have faced repeated drone and missile attacks in the war. Units of anti-Kremlin Russian volunteers based in Ukraine have also staged cross-border raids.
The latest incursion doesn’t involve Ukraine-based Russian volunteers, the NV.ua news website said, citing an unidentified member of military intelligence.
Fighting in Ukraine has largely become deadlocked along a 1,270-kilometer (790-mile) front line in the east and southeast of the country, with neither side able to achieve significant territorial gains.
--With assistance from Volodymyr Verbianyi, Aliaksandr Kudrytski, Michael Ovaska and Skylar Woodhouse.
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