Video footage posted on Telegram Saturday, Aug. 10 allegedly shows Ukrainian soldiers having entered Russia’s Belgorod region.
Although the date of filming and the level of Ukrainian presence is unclear, analysts from Ukraine’s VoxCheck and Suspilne confirmed that the video was filmed in front of a community arts center in the Belgorod region village of Poroz – which is just over a mile into Russia.
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The video purportedly shows a group of soldiers from Ukraine’s 252nd Battalion holding up Ukrainian and Georgian flags, having just captured the village.
“With best wishes, the 252nd battalion is in the Poroz settlement in the Belgorod region. Glory to Ukraine, glory to the 252nd battalion!” a soldier says to the camera.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region, said that the situation in Poroz would be investigated by law enforcement, but entry there is closed off, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
“There is contradictory information: on the one hand, we all saw the video shot in front of the village community arts center, but on the other hand, residents who had just left say they did not see the enemy or hear any gunfire,” Gladkov said.
Meanwhile, Russia’s national “anti-terrorism” committee said late Friday it was starting “counter-terror operations in the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions.”
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On Tuesday, Aug. 6, by launching an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, at least 1,000 Ukrainian troops as well as tanks and armored vehicles, turned the tables on Moscow, which has been conducting a full-scale invasion of its neighbor since February 2022.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimates that the Ukrainians have overcome two Russian defensive lines and at least one military base.
Video posted on several pro-Kremlin Telegram channels overnight on Thursday/Friday, Aug. 8/9 showed a column of Russian military vehicles fiercely burning at the side of the road near the village of Oktyabrskoye in the Rylsky district of the Kursk region.
Russian milbloggers accused their commanders of criminal incompetence after the strike.
According to The Washington Post, an advisor to President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that by Thursday, Ukrainian forces had captured approximately 100 square kilometers of territory and taken hundreds of Russian soldiers prisoner. The Ukrainians also reportedly control the Sudzha gas measuring station, which is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Poroz, and used by Gazprom to supply fuel to Europe.
Russian intelligence had warned of a potential Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region two weeks before it occurred, but the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, led by General Valery Gerasimov, chose to ignore these warnings, according to a Bloomberg report citing Kremlin sources.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian President’s office said Thursday: “The reason for any escalation, shelling, fighting, and destruction on Russian territory, including the Kursk and Belgorod regions, is singular: Russia's unconditional aggression.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia needed to “feel” the consequences of its war.
“Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,” Zelensky said in his evening address, without directly referring to the offensive.
Some military analysts believe the next target for Ukrainian forces might be the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant.
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