Russia mentioned on Sunday (Jan 5) that Ukraine had launched a counter-attack within the Kursk area, an space of western Russia from which Russian troops have been making an attempt to eject Ukrainian forces for the previous 5 months.
Ukrainian troops broke throughout the border in a shock incursion on Aug 6 and have managed to carry on to a piece of territory there which might present Kyiv with an vital bargaining chip in potential peace talks.
“Round 9am Moscow time, to be able to cease the advance of Russian troops within the Kursk course, the enemy launched a counterattack with an assault group consisting of two tanks, a mine clearing car, and twelve armoured fight autos with paratroops in direction of Berdin village,” the Russian defence ministry mentioned in a press release.
“Artillery and aviation of the North group of (Russian) forces defeated the assault group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” it added.
The assertion mentioned two Ukrainian assaults had been repelled. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the scenario on the bottom.
Stories from Russia’s influential battle bloggers, who assist Moscow’s battle in Ukraine however have typically reported critically on failings and setbacks, indicated that the most recent Ukrainian assault had put Russian forces on the defensive.
“Regardless of robust stress from the enemy, our items are heroically holding the road,” the Operativnye Svodki (Operational Stories) channel mentioned.
It mentioned artillery and small-arms battles had been going down, and Ukraine was utilizing Western-armoured autos to herald massive numbers of infantry.
The accounts from the defence ministry and the bloggers mentioned combating was concentrated simply north of a freeway that runs from Sudzha, close to the border, to Kursk, the regional capital.
However one influential blogger, Yuri Podolyak, mentioned this was most definitely a Ukrainian distraction manoeuvre, probably to arrange a strike on Glushkovo, additional west. He advisable civilians there and in one other city, Korenevo, to evacuate.
