Russia has implemented a sweeping security regime in three border regions, responding to what is being labeled as Ukraine’s most significant attack on Russian territory since the conflict began in 2022. Ukrainian units launched a surprise assault across the border into Russia’s western Kursk region on Tuesday morning, advancing several kilometers, according to independent analysts. President Vladimir Putin characterized the incursion as a major provocation, and although Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, declared on Wednesday that Ukraine’s advance had been stopped, Russia has thus far failed to completely push Ukrainian forces back across the border. “The enemy has been halted so far – but that does not mean that it is all quiet there: there is serious fighting going on there,” stated Andrei Gurulyov, a lieutenant general with a history in Soviet and Russian forces, who currently serves as a lawmaker for the ruling party. At least 3,000 civilians have been evacuated from Russian border areas, where emergency aid and medical supplies have been delivered. Additional trains to Moscow have been added for those seeking to flee. “The war has come to us,” confided one woman who escaped the border zone, speaking to AFP at a Moscow train station on Friday, declining to provide her name. Russia’s military reported that Ukraine initially dispatched approximately 1,000 troops, along with over two dozen armored combat vehicles and tanks. However, Russia claims to have destroyed around five times the number of military equipment. AFP could not independently verify these figures, as both sides have repeatedly been accused of exaggerating enemy losses while downplaying their own setbacks. Russia’s nuclear agency asserted that Ukraine’s cross-border attack posed a “direct threat” to a nuclear power plant situated less than 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the combat zone. “The actions of the Ukrainian army pose a direct threat” to the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia, near the Ukraine border, state news agencies quoted Rosatom as saying, adding: “At the moment there is a real danger of strikes and provocations by the Ukrainian army.” In response to the situation, Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), ordered an anti-terrorist regime to be imposed on Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions, encompassing a combined area of nearly 92,000 square kilometers. “The Kyiv regime has made an unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation in a number of regions of our country,” the National Anti-Terrorism Committee stated, acknowledging civilian casualties. The measures effectively grant security services extensive powers to impose a lockdown on the affected area, including control over communications and restrictions on numerous customary freedoms. Thousands of civilians have been evacuated from the Kursk region. Some reports indicate that Ukrainian forces were advancing towards the Kursk nuclear power station, which supplies a significant portion of southern Russia’s electricity. It comprises a total of six reactors, with two shut down, two under construction, and two operational. Alexei Smirnov, the acting governor of the Kursk region, confirmed that drone debris had fallen on a power substation near Kurchatov, the town that serves the Kursk nuclear station. Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, took note of the “significant military activity” in the region and urged restraint. Russian diplomats in Vienna informed the IAEA that fragments, potentially from downed missiles, had been discovered, although there was no evidence of a direct attack on the station.
Russia Imposes Security Regime as Ukraine Launches Border Incursion
