General
What to Know About Ukraine’s Cross-Border Assault Into Russia
The incursion caught Russia by surprise and signified a shift in tactics for Kyiv after more than two years of war with Russia.
Ukraine pressed ahead with its assault inside Russian territory on Tuesday, a week into the biggest foreign incursion into the country since World War II.
While Russian military officials on Tuesday insisted that the situation was under control, Aleksei Smirnov, the acting governor of Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine mounted its incursion, warned that “the crisis has not yet been overcome.” And President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Tuesday on X that “our forces continue to advance in the Kursk region.”
Col. Roman Kostenko, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament serving in the country’s military, told a local news outlet that the “advance is ongoing.”
The cross-border attack caught Russia by surprise and signified a shift in tactics for Kyiv, more than two years after Moscow’s troops poured across Ukraine’s border in a full-scale invasion.
The rapid advance by Ukrainian forces has been an embarrassment for the Kremlin and aims to alter the narrative of the war at a time when Kyiv’s forces are stretched thin on the front lines of their own country.
Here’s what to know about Ukraine’s cross-border operation in Russia.
What happened?
Ukrainian troops and armored vehicles stormed into the Kursk region of western Russia the morning of Aug. 6, punching through border defenses and seizing several settlements in heavy fighting that left a trail of death and ruin.
