Russia tightens security in region of Ukraine incursion, fighting persists

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia on Saturday announced what it called a counterterrorism operation to increase security in the border region where an incursion this week by Ukrainian forces caught Russian troops off-guard and exposed its military vulnerabilities in the 2 1/2-year-old war.

The Russian Defense Ministry said fighting was continuing in the Kursk region and that the army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb that both causes a blast wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its targets.

The measures announced for Kursk and for the neighboring Belgorod and Bryansk regions that border Ukraine allow the government to relocate residents, control phone communications and requisition vehicles.

The raid that began on Tuesday is the largest cross-border foray of the war and raises concerns about fighting spreading well beyond Ukraine.

In neighboring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed but which has not sent its own army into Ukraine, President Alexander Lukashenko said Saturday that its air defenses shot down unspecified objects launched from Ukraine that were flying over Belarusian territory.

“I do not understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to figure it out. As I said before, we made it clear to them that any provocations will not go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to state news agency Belta.

A Russian plane-launched missile slammed into a Ukrainian shopping ma...