MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday a Ukrainian "sabotage group" that tried to attack Russia's Kursk region has retreated in defeat.
Russia earlier accused Ukraine of mounting an attack on its southern border and said it had moved in reserves to help repel hundreds of fighters backed by tanks.
"After suffering losses, the Ukrainian sabotage group retreated to its territory, while some of the fighters tried to gain a foothold directly on the territory adjacent to the state border, where they were blocked by Russian army units," Moscow's defence ministry said in a statement.
"After suffering significant losses, the remnants of the sabotage group retreated to Ukrainian territory."
It said Russia used artillery fire, warplanes and drones to beat back the attack.
Ukraine's military authorities in Sumy region -- on the other side of the border from Russia's Kursk region -- said Ukrainian forces had destroyed a Russian ballistic missile, two drones and a helicopter in the region.
Unofficial Ukrainian military blogs showed pictures of what they described as the destroyed helicopter and other equipment.
Ukraine's general staff, in a regular update, reported Russian strikes on border villages but made no mention of any Ukrainian offensive operation at the border.
Russian regions near the border have come under frequent Ukrainian shelling in the course of the war in Ukraine, as well as occasional incursions by groups of anti-Kremlin Russian volunteers who are fighting on Ukraine's side.
Moscow said that up to 300 Ukrainian fighters, backed by tanks, had taken part in the reported attack on Tuesday against Russian border units in Nikolayevo-Daryino and Oleshnya, two settlements in Russia's Kursk region.
Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.
Ukraine's main military effort is focused on pushing back Russian military forces who control nearly a fifth of its territory after almost 2-1/2 years of war, and have made a series of gradual gains in the past six months.
'DIFFICULT' SITUATION ON THE BORDER
Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, said earlier on Tuesday that Russian soldiers and FSB forces had repelled a Ukrainian attack but the situation at the border remained "difficult".
In a series of updates on social media, Smirnov said three Russian civilians had been killed, one by shelling and two by drones, and 18 others were wounded.
Russian media quoted the FSB as saying that Russian forces had dealt with an armed "provocation" by Ukraine.
Ukrainian strikes inside Russia's own territory have mostly involved shelling of border regions and drone attacks on targets such as oil refineries and fuel depots.
A Russian missile attack on the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine killed at least one person, injured 12 others and damaged a medical clinic, according to Ukrainian officials.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow with additional reporting by Yuliia Dysa in Gdansk; writing by Mark Trevelyan; editing by Gareth Jones, Mark Heinrich, Ron Popeski and Jonathan Oatis)
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