Anika Begay
By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia imposed a tough security regime in three border regions on Saturday, as Moscow marshaled its forces to counter Ukraine’s biggest attack on sovereign Russian territory since the war began in 2022.
Ukrainian forces breached the Russian border in the early hours of Tuesday and overran parts of western Russia’s Kursk region, in a surprise attack that may be aimed at gaining leverage in possible ceasefire talks after the U.S. election.
President Vladimir Putin has called it a serious provocation, and despite Russian General Valery Gerasimov saying on Wednesday that the Ukrainian incursion had been stopped, Russia has so far failed to push Ukrainian forces back across the border.
“The enemy has been stopped so far, but that doesn’t mean everything is calm there: serious fighting is going on there,” said Andrei Gurulyov, a lieutenant general who served in the Soviet and Russian forces and is now a ruling party MP.
Russian military bloggers said the situation had stabilized after Russia sent in troops to stop Ukraine’s surprise advance, although they said Ukraine was rapidly building up its forces and intense battles were ongoing.
The Ukrainian attack on Russia has prompted some in Moscow to question how Ukraine was able to invade the Kursk region so easily, after more than two years of the most intense ground war in Europe since World War II.
Ukraine has not directly commented on the attack, but a video posted on Ukrainian media reportedly shows Ukrainian soldiers checking a gas metering facility in the border town of Sudzha, where Russian gas enters Ukraine on its way to Europe.
Reuters could not verify the video. Reports from Russian sources said Ukraine had control of some areas of Sudzha.
NUCLEAR PLANT
Alexander Bortnikov, director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), has ordered the establishment of an anti-terrorist regime in the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions, which together cover an area of about 92,000 square kilometers.
“The Kiev regime has made an unprecedented attempt to destabilize the situation in several regions of our country,” the National Anti-Terrorism Committee said, adding that civilian casualties had occurred.
The measures essentially give security services broad powers to block an area, including controls on communications and limits on a range of usual freedoms. Thousands of civilians have been evacuated from the Kursk region.
Some reports say Ukrainian forces are moving toward the Kursk nuclear power plant, which provides a large portion of southern Russia’s electricity. It has a total of six reactors, two shut down, two under construction, and two operational.
Acting Kursk Region Governor Alexei Smirnov said debris from the drone fell on a power substation near Kurchatov, the town that serves the Kursk nuclear power plant.
The head of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency highlighted the “significant military activity” in the area and called for restraint.
Russian diplomats in Vienna told the IAEA that fragments had been found, probably from downed missiles, although there was no evidence of an attack on the station.
