WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Russia battles Ukrainian troops for third day after shock incursion Russian forces were battling Ukrainian troops for a third day on Thursday after they smashed through the Russian border in the Kursk region, an audacious attack on the world's biggest nuclear power that has forced Moscow to call in reserves. In one of the biggest Ukrainian attacks on Russia since the war began in February 2022, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops rammed through the Russian border in the early hours of Aug. 6 with tanks and armoured vehicles, covered in the air by swarms of drones and pounding artillery,…

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE Putin accuses Ukraine of a ‘large-scale provocation’ with its raid in southwestern Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday described a Ukrainian incursion into the country’s southwestern Kursk region as a “large-scale provocation” as his officials asserted that they were fighting off cross-border raids for a second day. Ukrainian officials remained silent about the scope of the operation. Putin met with his top defense and security officials to discuss what he called the “indiscriminate shelling of civilian buildings, residential houses, ambulances with different types of weapons.” He instructed the Cabinet to coordinate assistance to the Kursk region. The…