Mayor Says Ukraine Attacked Russian Border Guards, Kremlin Takes Seriously

JAKARTA - A Russian regional official said border guards in the Kursk region bordering Ukraine were attacked on Wednesday, while schools near Belgorod were evacuated following bomb threats, according to the city's mayor.

Moscow, which sent thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24 in what it called a "special military operation", accuses Ukraine of attacking Russian targets across the border.

"Yesterday, they tried to fire mortars at our border guard positions in Sudzhansky District," said Roman Starovoit, governor of the Kursk region.

"Russian border guards returned fire. There were no casualties or damage on our side." Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

Starovoit said officials were in touch with the Defense Ministry, urging residents to remain calm. In separate comments to the RIA news agency, he said the mortar shells fired at the Sudzha border had not yet reached Russian territory.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not yet have details of the incidents in the two Russian regions, but took the reports as serious.

Separately, responding to a question about the border incident, a spokesman for the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said: "We have no such information."

Meanwhile, the mayor of Belgorod in Russia, about 35 km (22 miles) from the border with Ukraine, said the school had been evacuated after receiving bomb threats.

"We understand that this is part of the information pressure (campaign) on our region," said mayor Anton Ivanov, without saying who he thought was responsible for the threat.

Russia last week accused Ukrainian military helicopters of carrying out airstrikes against a fuel depot in Belgorod, one of Russia's main logistics hubs for its military campaign in Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian official denied responsibility.

The Kremlin said at the time the incident did not create comfortable conditions for resuming peace talks with Kyiv.