Russia has lost two helicopters and two main battle tanks in its efforts to fend off a cross-border raid into the Kursk region, reports suggest, as Russian sources suggest Kyiv’s forces encroached several miles into Russian territory during the surprise assault.
Open-source intelligence accounts, along with Russian and Ukrainian military-focused sources, suggest Russia lost a Ka-52 helicopter, an Mi-28 helicopter and two tanks in the Kursk region after Ukraine launched its cross-border attack on Tuesday.
Ukrainian media amplified reports claiming that the Mi-28 was taken out by a Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drone.
Russian journalist Alexander Sladkov said on Wednesday Russia had lost two helicopters, including a Ka-52.
Russian Kamov Ka-52 Alligator attack helicopters fly over the Kremlin in Moscow on May 9, 2020. Sources suggest Russia lost a Ka-52 helicopter, an Mi-28 helicopter and two tanks in the Kursk region after Ukraine launched a cross-border raid on Tuesday.
ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty Images
Newsweek could not independently verify these reports, and has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment via email.
Moscow said Ukraine had attacked the Kursk border settlements of Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya from around 8 a.m. Moscow time on Tuesday. Heavy fighting was reported around the town of Sudzha, close to Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
Russia said it “repelled” the assault from what it identified as Ukraine’s 22nd Mechanized Brigade, which involved 11 tanks and more than 20 armored vehicles. Moscow’s defense ministry said it had transferred reserve fighters to the area.
But Russian military bloggers—accounts often used as sources of information on the war in Ukraine—painted a different picture, with some claiming Ukrainian forces reached up to 15 kilometers, or just over nine miles, into Russian territory.
A prominent Russian blogger said on Wednesday that Ukraine had “managed to take control of several more settlements,” after it had become “clear that it was impossible to dislodge the foe forces from the territory they had occupied.”
“The situation in the Kursk region at the moment really turned out to be much more serious than it might seem at first glance,” the popular WarGonzo channel, believed to be run by Kremlin-linked propagandist Semyon Pegov, wrote on Wednesday. The initial attack penetrated Russian territory and Ukraine then “pulled up significant reserves to the area of combat clashes on the border and Sudzha,” the account added.
“The situation in the region is under control,” Kursk’s acting regional governor, Alexei Smirnov, said on Wednesday.
Andrii Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine’s national security and defense council, said the Kremlin was “lying about the controllability of the situation in the Kursk region.”
“Russia does not control the border,” Kovalenko said in a statement.
Earlier this year, anti-Kremlin, Ukraine-based Russian organizations said they had launched an incursion into Belgorod and Kursk from Ukrainian territory. Moscow blamed the border clashes on Ukrainian “terrorist formations.”
Kyiv said at the time that the organizations, including the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Siberian Battalion, were not official Ukrainian organizations but that Ukraine would “try and help them as much as we can.”
Russian state media reporter, Andriy Medvedev, said that the number of armored vehicles and fighters, along with supporting artillery fire, suggested “this is not a sabotage and reconnaissance group,” but a “combined arms group, covered by air defense.”
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