Kremlin aide says NATO and the West helped Ukraine attack Russia

An influential aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the West and the US-led NATO alliance had been directly involved in planning Ukraine's surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region.

The lightning incursion into Russia unfurled on August 6 when thousands of Ukrainian troops crossed Russia's western border in a major embarrassment for Putin's military.

The United States and Western powers, eager to avoid confrontation with Russia, said Ukraine had not given advance notice and that Washington was not involved. 

However, weaponry provided by Britain and the US was reported to have been used on Russian soil.

Hawkish Kremlin aide Nikolai Patrushev dismissed the Western assertions in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper.

"The operation in the Kursk region was also planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services," he was quoted as saying, without offering evidence.

"Without their participation and direct support, Kyiv would not have ventured into Russian territory."

The remarks by one of the Kremlin's influential "Cold War warriors" implied that Ukraine's first acknowledged incursion into sovereign Russian territory since Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine in 2022 carried a high risk of escalation.

Reuters