Russia strengthens its defense –

kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — Russia announced what it called an anti-terrorist operation on Monday to boost security in the Kursk border region, where an incursion by Ukrainian forces this week took Russian troops by surprise and exposed their vulnerabilities in a war that has lasted nearly two and a half years.

Russia’s defence ministry said fighting in the Kursk region was continuing and the military had launched air strikes against rival forces that included the use of a thermobaric bomb, which causes a shock wave and creates a vacuum that suffocates its targets.

The measures announced for Kursk and the neighbouring regions of Belgorod and Bryansk, which share a border with Ukraine, allow the government to relocate the population, monitor telephone communications and seize vehicles.

The incursion that began last Tuesday is the largest cross-border operation since the start of the war and raises fears that the fighting could spread beyond Ukraine.

In neighbouring Belarus, where Russian troops are deployed although Minsk has not sent soldiers to Ukraine, its president, Alexander Lukashenko, reported yesterday that its anti-aircraft defences shot down unspecified objects fired from Ukraine that were flying over its territory.

“I don’t understand why Ukraine needs this. We need to find out. As I said before, we have made it clear to them that no provocation will go unanswered,” Lukashenko said, according to the state-run Belta news agency.

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