A CNN news team recently visited Russia's border with Ukraine, filming a report at the Sudzha checkpoint. This checkpoint was the starting point for the Ukrainian offensive into the Kursk Region on August 6. The footage shows Ukrainian and Western made vehicles freely crossing the checkpoint in both directions. Nick Paton Walsh, CNN's international security correspondent, called the scene "remarkable" and noted that the Russian border "looks completely unprotected." Walsh also spoke to a Ukrainian soldier in a vehicle, who admitted he did not anticipate the incursion into Russian territory and was unaware of its ultimate goals. The American journalists did not venture further into Russian territory, remaining at the checkpoint.

The presence of Western media covering the Ukrainian incursion into Russia has not gone unnoticed by Russian war correspondents and military bloggers. A prominent Russian war correspondent asked, "Yet again, CNN is running reports of American journalists at our Sudzha checkpoint. There are also journalists from DW and other Western channels. Will we kill them for trespassing with the Ukrainian Armed Forces or appeal to the UN to condemn this illegal journalistic activity?"

The Rybar channel raised a similar concern, questioning what the Russian side plans to do about foreign journalists "roaming the Sudzha region, occupied by Ukrainian forces". Rybar suggested that Ukrainian forces are using Western media as a "human shield." "This continues to tarnish Russia's reputation politically, yet no decisive action is being taken. While we remain paralyzed by fear, the other side seems to have lost all fear and openly mocks our bureaucratic inefficiencies," lamented the author.

Previously, Ukrainian and Italian networks have also published reports from Russian soil, prompting Moscow to lodge an official protest with the Italian authorities.

  War in Ukraine, Kursk, Sudzha, RAI, DW, CNN

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