Russia on Wednesday was battling the fiercest Ukrainian counter-attacks in months after Kiev launched a surprise cross-border ground assault using troops and armoured vehicles. Russian President Vladmir Putin expressed his outrage about Ukraine’s incursion onto Russian soil, calling Kiev’s military raid into the Kursk region a “massive provocation.” The chief of Russia’s general staff, Valery Gerasimov, put the number of Ukrainian soldiers fighting several kilometres inside the region at up to 1,000. He asserted that the Ukrainian advance had been halted and that “the operation will end with t…