We have heard our defence and security analyst, Professor Michael Clarke, say that Ukraine has “launched an attack of utter astonishment” against Russia this week.
As we reported, Ukraine invaded Russia’s Kursk region, prompting the evacuation of more than 70,000 people and the activation of emergency security measures in three Russian regions.
Professor Clarke says this indicates that Ukraine “will win this war to the extent that it is carried out. “
“Not only did they launch a wonderful attack, they introduced a whole crippling attack. They stunned the Russians, stunned the Western donors,” he says.
As things stand, the surprise of this wonderful attack “favors kyiv. ”
The pocket that penetrated Russian territory is at least 35 miles and about 15 miles deep, he said.
“It’s powerful. . . Ukrainians will have to be very satisfied with the current situation. “
Can Ukraine Fight Its Offensive?
Asked if Ukrainian forces will be able to reach their position, Professor Clarke says they will want to be reinforced.
He claims that in Russia there are about 3 or 4 brigades, which are “high-level elite troops. ”
According to the analyst, Ukraine takes this offensive seriously.
No data has been provided on the targets of Ukraine, which has tightly controlled the security of data on the invasion, but Professor Clarke says Kyiv hopes to attract smart equipment from the Russian military and relieve Ukrainian front lines elsewhere.
So far, anecdotal evidence suggests that Moscow is withdrawing its units from southern Ukraine, especially in the Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk regions.
Russia “will do everything in its power in this pocket,” he says.
“Putin lets this continue”
Professor Clarke believes that Russia will most likely react.
“The idea of having part of their territory confiscated for the first time since 1941. . . Putin let this sit,” he said.
Moscow “will counterattack with as much force as necessary and this war will become even fiercer. ”
On the Ukrainian side, Professor Clarke says that Kiev “is betting on the good luck of this offensive” and that “it is paying off”.
The longer the Ukrainians hold Kursk, the Russia will have to expel them, he said.
As we reported, we entered the sixth day of fighting in Russia’s Kursk region after Ukrainian forces crossed the border.
These are some of the most recent photographs of the area, adding a broken construction hit by drone debris and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The Russian Defense Ministry also shared photographs showing, it said, the destruction of a Ukrainian tank.
Earlier this week, we reported on a Russian in a supermarket in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
The missile strike killed another 14 people and wounded 44 others.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine announced that three young people were among the dead.
They were 3 women over nine, 11 and 16 years old.
The attack took place in the town of Kostiantynivka, which also suffered an attack on a local market in September last year, killing another 17 people.
The Russian Defense Ministry shared aerial images showing a Ukrainian tank on fire.
We see the tank firing being enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke.
The footage was reportedly filmed in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have launched an offensive.
By Deborah Haynes, Security and Defense Editor
Details about the number of Ukrainian troops in Russia are unclear, and commanders were intentionally silent about a secretly planned mission.
But they will most likely number in the thousands, with elements of at least three well-equipped brigades on the ground, deploying tanks, armored vehicles, artillery guns and drones.
It is also difficult to gauge how the Ukrainian attackers have pressed, as Russian army bloggers claim they have penetrated up to about 19 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
The videos, widely distributed on social media, purport to show Ukrainian infantrymen waving Ukraine’s yellow and blue flag on Russian territory, adding in the city of Sudzha and in an agreement near the border with Ukraine in the neighboring Belgorod region.
Under pressure, Russia sent reinforcements and released photos of its army counterattacking, but this is the sixth day of the Ukrainian offensive and fighting continues.
Commenting on the developments, analysts noted that it was the first time Russia had been invaded since Adolf Hitler in 1941.
But the attack on Ukraine is the act of a competitive and land-grabbing power.
Rather, it is the counterintuitive action of a country that invaded through Vladimir Putin’s Russia a decade ago – capturing Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine – and then became even more devastated with Moscow’s full-scale invasion. in February 2022.
This makes kyiv’s counterinvasion of Kursk the most recent – though arguably most audacious – attempt across Ukraine to expel Russian forces from within its own sovereign territory.
To counter the much larger Russian army, Ukrainian commanders had to be at the forefront from the start and be willing to take enormous risks.
Two and a half years ago, Ukrainian troops, outnumbered and outgunned – supported by Western weapons – defied all odds to save Russia from seizing Kyiv.
They then forced the Russian invaders to retreat from all of northern Ukraine.
A few months later, in September 2022, the Ukrainian innovated again.
He introduced a wonderful counteroffensive against Russian troops occupying the northeast of his country, just as Russia was facing a simultaneous but much more expected counterattack in the south.
Ukraine recaptured swaths of territory in the Kharkiv region during the offensive. His forces also continued the counterattack in the south, retaking the southern city of Kherson.
However, Russian positions elsewhere in southern Ukraine and in the Donbass in the east are much more powerful and harder to defeat.
When Ukraine’s Western allies overlooked deadly weapons such as tanks and long-range missiles last year, expectations of a Ukrainian counteroffensive grew for a moment.
But this effort failed because the fighting failed to penetrate the heavily fortified Russian lines.
This time, the leadership of Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kiev, has taken another bet.
Instead of preparing their troops to return to Russian positions in Ukraine after the typhoon, leaders have opted to send their troops to Russia, where the border is – curiously – less well defended.
It is highly unlikely that Ukraine has the ability or preference to possess much or none of the territory, yet it has dealt a humiliating blow to Mr. Putin and brought Russia’s bloody war in Ukraine much closer to other Russians and their citizens. president.
The city in Russia’s Belgorod region is now facing shelling by Ukrainian forces, local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Four other people were injured, in addition to three men wounded by shrapnel and taken to Shebekino hospital.
They are said to be in good condition.
The shelling also destroyed an apartment building, a bus stop and a bus, Gladkov said.
The region is lately under emergency measures after Ukrainian forces crossed the border into the neighboring Kursk region.
Ukrainian media have reported in the past about a video showing Ukrainian troops in the village of Poroz in the Belgorod region.
Poroz is approximately 130 kilometers west of Shebekino.
Last night we heard the Ukrainian president comment on the Russian attack on Kyiv.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered his “deepest condolences” to the circle of relatives of the father and son killed in the attack.
He said early suggestions that Russia used a North Korean missile in the attack.
“Pyrotechnics experts are still searching for accurate knowledge about this missile,” he wrote in X.
President Russia introduced more than 30 missiles and 800 guided aerial bombs into Ukraine last week.
“We Ukrainians are deeply grateful to all our partners who supply us with air defense systems and fighter jets,” he said.
“However, to truly end Russian terrorism, we need not only a complete air shield capable of protecting all of our cities and communities, but also corporate decisions from our partners, decisions that remove restrictions on our defensive actions. ”
An apartment building broken and a car set on fire after a nighttime airstrike in Russia’s Kursk region.
The local government said the damage was caused by a downed Ukrainian missile.
Kursk officials said earlier that thirteen other people were wounded in the attack.
Although the extent of Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region remains uncertain, the city of Sudzha has been the focus of attention in recent days.
Located about 10. 5 km from the border with Ukraine, it is about one hundred km from the regional capital, the city of Kursk.
Sudzha is home to about 5,000 more people and is a major fuel shipping hub.
The Ukrainian troops who have crossed the border (and it is estimated that they may be only several thousand) are said to have expanded the spaces under their control.
Ukrainian media reports that Kyiv’s forces appear to have entered Russia’s Belgorod region.
Troops have already crossed the border into the Kursk region and are taking up positions there.
The media, as the Ukrainian newspaper Suspilne adds, are now publishing a video in which five uniformed Ukrainian infantrymen are seen in front of a construction site and one of them says: “I wish you health, the 252nd battalion is in the village of PorozArray in Belgorod region. Glory to Ukraine!
They held the battalion flag and a Georgian flag.
A sign on the building reads “Porozovsky Village Club. ”
The video has not been independently verified through Sky News, however Ukraine-based fact-checking project VoxCheck showed the video was filmed in Poroz, 3 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
It’s unclear when the video was filmed or if it was part of a raid.