On Tuesday, 6 August, Russian media began reporting on fighting on the border. The propagandists immediately claimed that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had carried out serious “artillery training”. The acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said that a Ukrainian drone had allegedly attacked a car at the Glushkovo station, injuring several people. He also warned of a missile threat in several other areas.
However, the GUR saidthat the “breakthrough” in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation “definitely did not involve” fighters of the Russian Volunteer Corps. The Legion “Freedom of Russia” also told Suspilne also told Suspilnethat they do not comment on the fighting near the villages of Kurylivka and Honcharivka in the Kursk region of Russia. [Kommersant] asked military expert Oleh Zhdanov what is happening in the Kursk region of Russia and whether the Armed Forces are involved.
“At the moment, I would say that an unknown military formation is conducting hostilities in the Kursk region
The fact is that they have a tactical insignia that the Ukrainian Armed Forces do not have,” the expert said.
He also referred to the latest reports on the matter from the Intelligence Directorate.
“The only thing that the Intelligence Directorate said was that there is no RDC there. We have information from the Russian Ministry of Defence and we have information from Russian publics. They say it’s us, because there is a common border between Ukraine and Russia, so there is no one else to blame,” Zhdanov summed up.
What happened in the Kursk region on 6 August
On the morning of 6 August, Russian media quoted acting governor Alexei Smirnov as saying that 26 Ukrainian drones had been shot down in the Kursk region. In addition, the Ukrainian military allegedly shelled the town of Sudzha. Three children and two adults were injured during the shelling.
The Russian official himself even posted photos of the shelling.
In social media, Russians living in the Kursk region began posting panicked messages that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had allegedly already crossed the border and that they were coming from Kursk itself and from the town of Sudzha and the village of Zaoleshenka, which had previously been hit by rocket attacks (Russian media wrote about several victims of rocket attacks there: a family with three children and two adult men) should leave.
Residents of border settlements in the Kursk region even complained to journalists journalists that “some of the most intense arrivals since the start of hostilities in 2022 have begun. Even rescuers are not responding to calls due to the high missile threat”.
In addition, residents of Suzhanivka claimed that tanks with white triangles painted on their armour were travelling through the village of Honcharivka, which is adjacent to their town, towards the border crossing point.
Later, Russian propagandists tried to reassure the residents of the region and wrote that the “Ukrainian military”, which had only penetrated 100 metres into the region, had been stopped and destroyed by the Russian Armed Forces. And the organisers of everything, according to according to the propagandistswere the Ukrainian authorities, who “needed a media image”. Allegedly, the “operation” was led by the head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, who was “trying to distract Ukrainians from the failures of the Armed Forces at the front”.
A short time later, this version was “picked up” by the acting governor of the region, Alexei Smirnov: he wrote that soldiers of the Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service and the Russian Armed Forces had prevented a border breakthrough in the Kursk region.
At the same time, Russian media and pro-Russian Telegram channels could not determine either the final number of “Ukrainian saboteurs” or the beginning of the “attack” on the Kursk region.
Around 17:00, the Russian Ministry of Defence issued a statement. Representatives of the ministry wrote that “at 8 a.m., 300 units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, supported by 11 tanks and 22 armoured vehicles, attacked the Kursk region”.
After 19:00, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported that the “Ukrainian saboteurs” had been pushed out of Russia.
