Europe | Now for the response

Russia’s double-punch back against Ukraine’s shock raid

It is bombing Ukrainians in Kursk and advancing in Pokrovsk

TOPSHOT-RUSSIA-UKRAINE-WAR-CONFLICT
Photograph: AFP via Getty Images
|KYIV AND SUMY

The order to move crackled over the radios at dawn on August 6th. Serhiy, a private in the 80th brigade, was among the first to emerge from the cover of the forest. By the time his unit crossed into Russia, supported by constant tank fire, the border had already been largely destroyed. “Our commanders didn’t spare a single round of artillery,” he says via voice messages from inside Russia’s Kursk region. Other Ukrainian troops report crossing the border on a wave of euphoria, with lines of prisoners almost immediately heading back in the other direction.

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