Now, Challenger 2 tanks supplied by the UK to Ukrainian forces have been used in their cross-border incursion into Russia, a source has told the BBC. Kiev says it's expanding its military operation in the Kusk region, and within the past hour or so, a top Commander has said the country's troops advanced a further 1 and a half kilometers in the past day. But Russia insists they are pushing back. Our correspondent, Will Vernon, has the latest.
In Russia, evacuations from parts of the border regions continue. 'Thousands homes, big guns were firing constantly,' this woman tells Russian State TV, 'my house was shaking and the furniture was moving around.' The Russian military is desperately trying to stop the Ukrainian advance, releasing more pictures showing forces in our sector - 'Everything under our control, we are destroying the enemy.' A little further along, they got through, but we're seeing to them. But these satellite images show that trenches are being dug in the region. Russia is urgently bringing in workers to build the defenses. That means Moscow is concerned about further gains for Ukraine.
Kiev says it continues to make progress, albeit at a slower pace. Ukrainian soldiers have released more footage, apparently showing the removal of Russian flags from buildings in villages they've seized during the incursion. President Volodymyr Zelensky said, 'We need other weapons, missiles, and we continue to work with our partners on long-term solutions for victory.'
Ukraine's allies seem to be listening. Today, the UK government said Ukraine can use British-supplied weapons, such as these Challenger 2 tanks inside Russian territory. In a statement to the BBC, the Ministry of Defense said Ukraine has a clear right of self-defense against Russia's attacks, which includes operations inside Russia.
The reason why those tanks were sent - 14 British Challenger tanks were sent in the first place - was so Ukraine could take back its own territory in the South that was started because of the heavy defenses, the minefields that Russia have put in place. They clearly haven't met that in Russia because Russia wasn't necessarily expecting an invasion to take place there. Should say that one of those Challenger tanks, of course, was destroyed last year in that operation in the South. Back to the incursion, what's your assessment of how it's actually going? Well, I think we've certainly seen it slow down, and you know, the initial stages were successful partly because they were able to use troops, artillery, armor tanks, drones, air defenses combined together - what the nerds call combined arms maneuver - in a way that they weren't able to do for their offensive last year. But it is slowing down, and it is meeting resistance, and it'll become harder to push forward. It may be, at the end of the day, and we've seen this happening, to put defensive lines in.
