Vladimir Putin was quick to show his fury on Wednesday when Ukrainian forces entered Russia.
The Russian president was responding to reports that Kyiv’s troops had launched a cross-border attack on the southwestern Kursk region, 330 miles from Moscow.
This invasion meant the area had to be put into a state of emergency after two days of fighting which saw 31 civilians injured.
The region’s acting governor Alexey Smirnov said five people were killed on Tuesday when Ukrainian troops, tanks and armoured vehicles broke through the Russian border.
It’s not known if there were any military casualties.
In a meeting with Russian government officials on Wednesday, Putin said: “The Kyiv regime has launched another major provocation.”
He claimed they were conducting the “indiscriminate shelling of civilian” targets in Kursk.
Ukraine is yet to comment on the attack and the White House’s spokesperson said the US had no advance knowledge of the offensive.
The US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said geolocated footage implied Ukraine may be 6.2 miles within Russia’s borders.
However, Putin’s top officials said Russian forces had managed to repel an offensive from 1,000 Ukrainians back to the border.
Just one day earlier, Moscow had claimed there were only up to 300 troops in this attack.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller later responded to Putin’s comments, saying: “It is a little bit rich them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
However, Russia’s embassy to the US, Anatoly Antonov, doubled down. He said: “The Ukrainian actions are an evident terrorist action.
“No one hides the fact that American weapons have become a murder weapon of ordinary Russians.
“Attacks on schools, hospitals, ambulances and residential buildings in Russia cannot be recognised as a right of self-defence.”
He added: “Washington should stop supplying weapons to Kyiv and pull back neo-Nazis from the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
And then he issued another threat, claiming: “I would like to confirm that the Russian borders are sacred. None of the terrorists will escape retribution.”
