State of emergency declared as Ukraine launches raid into Russia

BBC:

A state of emergency has been declared in the Kursk region of Russia, as a rare cross-border attack by Ukrainian troops continued on Wednesday.

The acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, said the move was necessary “to eliminate the consequences of enemy forces coming into the region”.

Russian officials said at least five civilians had been killed and 31 wounded, six of them children, since the start of the incursion.

Ukraine has not officially commented and the depth of the incursion remains unclear.

• Why has Ukraine launched a cross-border attack on Russia?

On Tuesday morning, up to 1,000 Ukrainian troops, as well as 11 tanks and more than 20 armoured combat vehicles, entered Russia near the town of Sudzha, Moscow said.

Fighting reportedly took place in a number of villages throughout Tuesday, with local authorities urging residents to limit their movements and all public events cancelled.

A number of air alerts were issued in Kursk and footage posted online – verified by the BBC – showed fighter jets flying low over the region, with smoke rising from areas on the ground.

Thousands of people were evacuated from border areas and doctors were being drafted in from other cities, Mr Smirnov said.

Ukrainian incursions into Russian territory have been extremely rare since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

On Wednesday evening, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko said the Ukrainian army had established control over the Sudzha gas hub, a major gas facility involved in the transit of natural gas from Russia to the EU via Ukraine, which has continued despite the war.

It is the only point of entry for Russian gas into the EU.

Although the claim has not been verified by the BBC, Mr Honcharenko’s comment was the first confirmation of an incursion into Russian territory by a Ukrainian official.

Mr Honcharenko said on Facebook that while he did not know what the “plan” behind the incursion was, it would show “Europeans and Americans that… Russia can and needs to be attacked”.

Speaking to the BBC’s Newshour, he added that “from a military point of view, we are trying to take back the initiative”.

“We are showing the world that the world should not be scared of escalation or the reaction of Putin. There is no reaction,” he said.

“For the first time since the Second World War, Russian territory that is internationally recognised is occupied and Putin did not [turn] to nukes and so on.”

He said the incursion would also force Russia to move troops to the region and hopefully decrease the number of attacks it can carry out in eastern Ukraine.

A White House spokesperson said the US had no previous knowledge of the attack and that it planned to reach out to the Ukrainian military “to learn more about their objectives”.