The chief of the Russian army’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces would be pushed back to the border, according to the Izvestia newspaper. He said that 1,000 Ukrainian troops were involved in the attack, and that 100 had been killed and 215 injured.
“Ukrainian forces are doomed,” said Major General Apty Alaudinov, a deputy chief of the main military-political directorate of the Russian Armed Forces, according to the official TASS news agency.
Several news outlets also reported on the battles, but Kyiv has not yet commented on events inside Russia’s borders.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have been making slow but steady gains against Ukraine on the eastern front, and are also engaged in an offensive in the direction of Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv. Many of the supply lines feeding that offensive run near the area where Ukrainian troops are apparently fighting inside Russia.
Moscow may also be forced to redirect soldiers from other fronts to defend Russia proper.
Ukraine’s allies, led by the United States, have been very wary of Ukraine using donated weapons to hit targets inside Russia. However, Kyiv wants to disrupt Russian bases and logistics inside Russia.
“Russia, by the way, has always believed that it can use its border regions with impunity for massive air and artillery attacks on the sovereign territories of other countries,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on X.