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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Ukraine had launched a "large-scale provocation" into Russia's Kursk region, but the extent of the fighting was unclear.
The Russian leader told his Cabinet that Kyiv's forces had carried out "indiscriminate shelling of civilian" targets in a second day of fighting in the region along the southwestern border with Ukraine.
But the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said it could not verify whether geolocated footage of damaged and abandoned armored vehicles 7 kilometers north of the border, west of Lyubimovka in the Kursk region, were Ukrainian.
The think tank also cast doubt on footage shared by Russian military bloggers claiming to show the aftermath of the Ukrainian raids. Most of the damage shown "appears to be the result of routine Ukrainian shelling and does not indicate that there was ground activity in the area," it said in its daily report.
Russia's acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, urged residents to donate blood because of injuries in the fighting. He said Moscow's forces have "been heroically resisting attacks" by Ukrainian fighters.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that up to 300 Ukrainian troops, supported by 11 tanks and more than 20 armored combat vehicles, had crossed into Russia but suffered heavy losses.
It said Russian forces backed by artillery and warplanes "didn't allow the enemy to advance deeper into the territory of the Russian Federation." Ukrainian officials declined to comment, and open-source monitors have not been able to verify the Russian claims.
The Kursk region's border with Ukraine is 245 kilometers long, making it possible for saboteur groups to launch swift incursions and capture some ground before Russia deploys reinforcements.
Russia's defense ministry said Wednesday it shot down four Ukrainian aerial drones over Kursk, a day after Russia said it repelled an attempt by hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers to breach the border region.
The defense ministry also said it destroyed three Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region, two drones over Voronezh and two others over Rostov.
Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram that several apartment buildings were damaged, but there were no reported casualties.
The Ukrainian attacks also damaged apartment buildings in Voronezh, officials in the region said.
In Ukraine's Mykolaiv region, Governor Vitaliy Kim said Ukrainian air defenses shot down 14 Russian aerial drones, with falling debris sparking several fires.
Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram that Russian forces attacked with kamikaze drones and heavy artillery, damaging homes and several farm buildings.
Officials in the Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia regions also reported Wednesday that Ukrainian air defenses destroyed several Russian aerial drones.
Some information for this story was provided by Reuters and The Associated Press.
The Voice of America provides news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of over 326 million people. Stories with the VOA News byline are the work of multiple VOA journalists and may contain information from wire service reports.