Kursk offensive hits Russia as Putin’s troops name in reserves – Ukraine battle newest

The UN has claimed that the month of July has been the deadliest one for Ukraine civilians since October 2022.

The organisation said at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured across the country during the month.

In a report published on Friday, it said: “The high number of casualties in July continues a trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024.”

Russia was fighting intense battles on against thousands of Ukrainian troops as deep as 20 km (12 miles) inside the Kursk region after Ukraine’s biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since the start of the war in 2022.

Ukrainian forces rammed through the Russian border early on Tuesday and swept across some Western parts of Russia’s Kursk region, a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the U.S. election.

Supported by swarms of drones and heavy artillery fire, Ukrainian units moved quickly to carve out a sliver of the Western Russian territory beside the border while sabotage units pierced deeper inside Russia, according to Russian war bloggers.

“The armed forces continue to repel the attempted invasion by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Russia’s defence ministry said, adding that intense battles were focused around Malaya Loknya, Olgovka and Ivashkovskoye, settlements around 10-20 km inside Russia.

Russia has announced a counterterrorism operation to increase security in the border region where an incursion this week by Ukrainian forces .

The Russian Defense Ministry said fighting was continuing in the Kursk region and the army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb that both causes a blast wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its targets. 

The measures announced for Kursk and for the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine would allow the government to relocate residents, control phone communications and requisition vehicles. 

The raid that began on Tuesday is the largest cross-border foray of the war and raises concerns about fighting spreading well beyond Ukraine.

Belarusian air defence forces destroyed several targets over their territory on Friday that were launched from Ukraine, most likely drones, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Saturday.

According to Lukashenko, “about a dozen” of targets violated Belarusian airspace in the eastern Mogilev region bordering Russia making Minsk to put its air force and air defence force on high alert.

“At 19:04 (16:04 GMT) at an altitude of one and a half kilometres and a range of 6.5 kilometres, the air defence forces destroyed several targets over the territory of Belarus. Overnight and this morning, a search for what was destroyed is underway,” Lukashenko said in a video posted by Belta state news agency.

He added that other targets “were transferred” to Russia and later destroyed near Russia’s city of Yaroslavl.

Earlier today, Russian Defence Ministry said Russian forces had intercepted six drones in the Yaroslavl region.

A man convicted in the killing of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov has been discharged from jail after signing a contract to join the military operation in Ukraine, state-run news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported.

Mr Nemtsov was shot dead in 2015 as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin in the heart of the Russian capital.

In 2017, a Russian court sentenced five men to prison terms ranging from 11 and 20 years for his murder. Among them was Tamerlan Eskerkhanov, who was convicted as an accomplice and jailed for 14 years.

“Eskerkhanov signed a contract with the defence ministry in March 2024, was pardoned, and then released from his penal colony,” TASS cited a source in law enforcement agencies as saying. He went to one of the assault units and is now carrying out combat missions in the special military operation zone.”

He added that the other convicts jailed over Nemtsov’s killing were still in jail because they had refused to sign contracts with the military.

Ukraine has launched one of its most successful assaults on Russia yet with a surprise cross-border attack which has left Vladimir Putin humiliated.

Nearly 1,000 troops, backed by artillery fire and tanks, have pushed miles into Russian territory, forcing residents to flee and the Russian president to call up reservists to help his forces who were caught off guard.

Ukraine has not only held onto gains made in recent days, but systematically advanced through villages and towns in the Kursk region in the west of Russia.

Our chief International correspondent Bel Crew has the full story:

Russia has announced it is introducing “counter-terrorism” measures in three bordering regions with Ukraine following Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk.

In a statement, the Russian National Antiterrorism Committee said the plan is to “ensure the safety of citizens and stop the threat of terrorist acts”. 

According to prominent pro-Russian Telegram channel Rybar, law enforcement agencies will have their “hands untied” to use “extreme measures”.

Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom has discussed the situation at a nuclear power plant in the Kursk region with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) following Ukraine’s incursion into the region, the RIA state news agency reported on Saturday.

In a phone call with IAEA chief Rafael Grossi, Alexei Likhachev of Rosatom said the Ukrainian incursion had “created a direct threat not only to the Kursk nuclear power plant but to the entire international nuclear energy industry.”