MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that it would beef up border defences, improve command and control and send in additional forces nearly 10 days after Ukraine made the biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since World War II.
The lightning incursion into Russia unfurled on August 6 when thousands of Ukrainian troops smashed through Russia’s western border in a major embarrassment for President Vladimir Putin’s top military brass. Russia’s military is yet to explain in public how Ukrainian forces were able to carve out a slice of the world’s biggest nuclear power. Putin’s Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, said the general staff had prepared a series of measures to defend Russia’s border regions of Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod — which cover an area the size of Portugal. “First of all, we are talking about improving the effectiveness of the command and control system in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies,” Belousov was shown telling top generals and officials from the Belgorod region.
While the Ukrainian attack has revealed weaknesses in Russia’s border defences and changed the public narrative of the conflict, Russian officials said what they cast as a Ukrainian “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war. –Agencies
