Ukraine continues major incursion into Russia, with reports of advances amid heavy fighting

ABC:

LONDON — Ukraine has continued its major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region for a third day, with Russia still clearly not in control and Ukrainian troops appearing still to be moving deeper into Russia.

The attack appeared to be a large-scale offensive operation, involving at least two Ukrainian brigades, rather than a less significant cross-border raid. As scale of the attack was on Thursday becoming clearer, it appeared to be one of the most significant military developments in the war in months.

An Ukrainian adviser to the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, Mykhailo Podolyak, commented Thursday for the first time on the operation, saying one goal was to alter the Russian perception of the war, a shift that could potentially affect any eventual negotiations.

“This increases the cost of the war for Russia quantitatively. More armored vehicles have been destroyed, the Russian Federation has lost territories, and there have been more casualties. Will this affect how they perceive this war? Undoubtedly,” Podolyak said in a live discussion on Ukrainian TV.

The Ukrainian incursion began on Tuesday when a Ukrainian force numbering in at least the hundreds crossed over the border near the village of Sudzha, with tanks and heavy weapons, according to official and unofficial Russian public sources. Catching Russia off-guard, Ukrainian soldiers quickly seized a handful of villages, advancing up to 10 to 15 km, according to the pro-Kremlin Russian military bloggers.

Since then Ukraine has moved in significant reinforcements and its forces were continuing to try to press forward but were being held on Thursday at the village of Korenovo, according to multiple pro-Kremlin bloggers, who are close to Russia’s military. Heavy fighting was also focused on Sudzha, which Ukrainian troops were reported to have largely surrounded.