Ukrainian forces descend on Belgorod in fresh attempt to break Russian border

Kyiv launches attack on two checkpoints having already captured 500 square miles of the neighbouring Kursk region

Ukrainian forces launched a fresh attempt to break across the Russian border into the Belgorod region on Tuesday.
Russian military bloggers said that hundreds of Ukrainian troops supported by armoured fighting vehicles had mounted an attack on the Nekhoteyevka border checkpoint.
Other reports suggested a second thrust was made further east along the frontier at the Shebekino checkpoint.
The attempted cross-border raids came as Ukraine’s occupation of Russia’s Kursk region, which neighbours Belgorod, entered its fourth week.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Kyiv’s top general, told a news conference that his forces had captured 500 square miles of Kursk, forcing Russia to deploy 30,000 troops to the area.
Ukrainian forces have launched several attempts to secure a breakthrough into the Belgorod region since the beginning of the ambitious Kursk offensive on Aug 6.
“There is information that Ukraine is attempting to break through the border of Belgorod Oblast,” Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the region, wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Tuesday.
“According to the Russian defence ministry, the situation on the border remains difficult but under control.”
Mash, a Telegram news channel with purported links to Russian law enforcement, reported that “up to 200 Ukrainian soldiers in several infantry-fighting vehicles” were met by volleys of Russian artillery fire as they approached the border at Nekhoteyevka.
Romanov, another popular Russian military blogger, said Kyiv’s forces were beaten back into a forested area west of the checkpoint.
“There were clashes with Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups and Russian artillery is working,” a third blog, Operation Z, wrote online. “No large-scale attempts to break through have been recorded.”
Neither military nor political officials in Kyiv have commented on the latest cross-border raid.
When Ukraine broke through into Kursk in a similar, surprise operation earlier this month it marked the first foreign invasion on Russian soil since the Second World War. Vladimir Putin has vowed to eject Ukrainian forces from the territory.
The incursion has prompted fears in Belgorod of attacks against villages and towns near the borders with Ukraine and neighbouring Kursk. In recent weeks, local authorities have ordered the evacuation of residents and agreed to pay them compensation for leaving their homes.
Western military experts have said Ukraine’s ability to keep Russia guessing about potential cross-border attacks will unsettle their attempts to reclaim areas of Kursk occupied by Kyiv.
“It’s a classic offensive operation. Attack weakness, give the Russians lots to think about and make difficult decisions with limited resources,” Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former British tank commander, said.
“The Russians will have to look south, putting them off balance, while they’re trying to reinforce Kursk. Ukraine launching such attacks means they understand manoeuvre warfare.”
On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said the Kursk operation was one of “the stages to end the war”.
“The Kursk operation is not related to any of the points of [Ukraine’s] peace formula. Is the Kursk operation connected to the second peace summit? Yes, it is. Because the Kursk operation is one of the points of Ukraine’s victory plan,” he said.
Kyiv held a peace summit in Switzerland in June that brokered a statement signed by more than 80 international governments endorsing three points of Mr Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan.
Ukrainian officials are planning a second summit with Russian representatives present in the coming months.
“Kursk Oblast is part of our plan for Ukraine’s victory,” the Ukrainian president told a news conference in Kyiv.
“There are some things I cannot discuss… Kursk Oblast is one of the plan’s directions, with some already being implemented. The second direction concerns Ukraine’s strategic position in the global security infrastructure. The third strategy is to use diplomatic means to coerce Russia into ending the war. The fourth direction is economic.”