An influential adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the West and the US-led NATO alliance helped plan Ukraine's surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region, something Washington has denied.
The intervention, the largest in Russia by a foreign power since World War II, began on August 6, when thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed Russia's western border.
Ukraine said the incursion was necessary to force Russia to start “fair” peace talks.
But the United States and Western powers, keen to avoid a direct military confrontation with Russia, said Ukraine had not notified them in advance of the attack and that Washington was not involved, although according to reports weapons sent by Britain and the US are used on Russian soil.
Kremlin veteran Nikolai Patrushev dismissed the Western claims in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.
“The operation in the Kursk region was also planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services,” he is quoted as saying, without providing evidence. “Without their direct participation and support, Kiev would not have entered Russian territory.”
The comments hint that the first attack that Ukraine has acknowledged it has undertaken on sovereign Russian territory carries a high risk of escalation.
President Putin chaired a meeting of Russia's Security Council, attended by Mr Patrushev, and said it would focus on “new technical solutions” to be used in the military operation, as Russia calls its aggression in Ukraine. which started in 2022.
“Washington's efforts have created all the preconditions for Ukraine to lose its sovereignty and part of its territories,” said Mr. Patrushev.
Ukraine said Thursday it had deployed a military commander to the area it controls in Kursk, as Russia stepped up its offensive in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian defense ministry, for its part, said it had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks along the Kursk front line.
The Ukrainian attack exposed weaknesses in Russian defenses, but Russian officials said the “terrorist invasion” of Ukraine will not change the course of the war.
President Putin sees the Ukrainian attack as crossing a red line. A Russian source told Reuters that the incursion could embolden hard-line voices in Moscow who have been pushing for a wider war.
The Russian president has characterized Europe's biggest war in seven decades as a limited “special military operation” that should have no impact on daily life in Russia and as a historic war in conditions where he says the West is ignoring its interests. Moscow and seeks to dismember Russia.
The United States, which has said it cannot allow Putin to win the war in Ukraine, has so far presented Ukraine's surprise attack as a defensive move, justifying the use of weapons sent by the United States, officials said in Washington. But they also expressed concerns about complications as Ukrainian troops try to advance deeper into Russian territory.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Ukraine begins to take control of Russian villages and other non-military targets using U.S. weapons and vehicles, it could approach the restrictions Washington has imposed precisely to avoid any perception of a conflict between NATO and Russia.
The Russian defense ministry has released footage showing a Russian drone destroying a US-made Stryker armored fighting vehicle in the Kursk region.
