Ukrainian paratroopers have released a new video they say captures the first few hours of Kyiv’s shock invasion of Russia last week.
The video, published on Friday by the Ukrainian military’s Command of the Air Assault Forces, purportedly shows troops engaging in combat on August 6 in Russia’s western Kursk region.
Ukrainian forces in the footage can be seen breaching the Russian border, destroying defensive lines, clearing mines, firing artillery, and taking prisoners, according to the post from Ukraine’s paratroopers.
“The first hours of the Defence Forces’ offensive in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation on 6 August 2024. A day that will go down in the history of the Russian-Ukrainian war,” the Ukrainian paratroopers wrote on Facebook, according to a translation by Ukraine’s government-run media outlet Ukrinform.
“Careful preparation, planning, surprise, morale and information silence were decisive at the initial stage of the operation,” the paratroopers said, adding that the assault now relies on multiple branches of the armed forces.
Business Insider was unable to independently verify the content and details of the video.
Ukraine’s surprise military incursion into the Kursk region stunned Russia and Kyiv’s international partners, including the US, which was not made aware of the operation ahead of time. Moscow has been scrambling to respond to the incursion, which is now on its 11th day and marks the biggest foreign enemy attack on Russian soil since World War II.
Ukraine’s military leadership said earlier this week that its forces had already captured some 1,000 square kilometers (roughly 386 square miles) of Russian territory — nearly as much as Moscow has seized in Ukraine this year — and more than 80 settlements. More than 130,000 civilians have fled the area. Ukraine has been planning to set up humanitarian assistance and evacuation corridors.
Britain’s defense ministry said in a Friday intelligence update on the situation that Ukrainian forces have managed to push between 10-25 kilometers (6-16 miles) deep into the Kursk region.
The ministry said that “although Russia had established defensive lines and had border forces in the area, these were not prepared to respond to a multi-battalion assault force.” Ukraine’s assault has been a substantial combined-arms operation.
But “after initial disarray and disorganization, Russian forces have deployed in greater force to the region, including likely from elsewhere along the contact line,” the defense ministry added. “They have also begun to construct additional defensive positions in an effort to prevent Ukrainian advances.”
Britain’s assessment of Russian force posture changes follows similar observations revealed on Thursday by the US.
John Kirby, a White House National Security Council spokesperson, said that the US has seen some Russian units redirected from operations in and around Ukraine to the Kursk region.
“I can’t say with certainty how many or how many more may go or what their intentions would be, but we have begun to see some Russian units being reapplied to the Kursk area,” he told reporters.
It remains to be seen whether these moves will reduce the pressure on Ukraine along other sectors of the front line, especially considering that the Ukrainians also pulled some troops off the line for the Kursk offensive.
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