Battles continue in Russian border region for third day

Russia says Kyiv’s advance halted; Zelensky aide says Moscow to blame for incursion

Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops for a third day on Aug 8 after they smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region, an audacious attack on the world's biggest nuclear power that has forced Moscow to call in reserves.

In one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks on Russia of the two-year war, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug 6 with tanks and armoured vehicles, covered in the air by swarms of drones and pounding artillery, according to Russian officials.

Ukrainian forces swept through the fields and forests of the border towards the north of Sudzha, a town of around 5,000 inhabitants located 8km from the Ukrainian border.

It is the last operational transshipping point for Russian natural gas to Europe via Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin cast the attack as a "major provocation".

The White House said the United States - Ukraine's biggest backer had no prior knowledge of the attack and would seek more details from Kyiv.

Russia's most senior general, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, told Mr Putin on Aug 7 that the Ukrainian offensive had been halted in the border area.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Aug 8 that the army and the Federal Security Service (FSB) had halted the Ukrainian advance and were battling Ukrainian units in the Kursk region.

"Units of the Northern group of forces, together with the FSB of Russia, continue to destroy armed formations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Sudzhensky and Korenevsky districts of the Kursk region, directly adjacent to the Russian-Ukrainian border," the ministry said.

It said Ukraine had lost 82 armoured vehicles, including eight tanks in the attack.

The Ukrainian army has remained silent on the Kursk offensive. But an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow was to blame for the incursion.