Putin appoints former bodyguard who fought off a bear to lead Kursk defence

Russia has pulled troops back from Ukraine to help defend the escalating invasion of its own land, according to Ukrainian officials.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin ordered his military to “drive out” the Ukrainian forces that have seized a swath of the southern border regions of Kursk and Belgorod.

He appointed his former bodyguard, Alexei Dyumin, as the commander in charge of the operation on Tuesday. Mr Dyumin gained favour by once protecting Putin from a bear and is seen as a potential successor to him in the Kremlin.

“Russia has relocated some of its units from both Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of Ukraine’s south,” Dmytro Lykhoviy, a Ukrainian army spokesman, told Politico.

Forcing Moscow on to the defensive had been seen as one aim of the cross-border raid that entered its eighth day on Tuesday.

Ukraine’s advance has not relieved pressure on the eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has been mounting an offensive, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian army.

Moscow was, however, unable to send further reinforcements to the battlefront in the Donetsk region, a spokesman for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.

Oleksander Syrsky, Kyiv’s top general, said on Monday that his forces were in control of 1,000 sq km (386 sq miles) of Russian land. The Telegraph was not able to verify that figure and independent analysts put the total lower.

But Russia has not been able to capture 1,000 sq km of Ukrainian land in eight months of heavy fighting, Telegraph analysis found.

Since December 2023, Moscow’s forces have advanced 994 sq km into Ukraine, according to maps published on the authoritative Ukrainian website, Deep State.

On Tuesday Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukraine president, said that 74 Russian settlements were now held by Ukrainian forces and suggested they could be swapped for Ukrainian territory.

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“Despite the difficult, intense battles, the advance of our forces in the Kursk region continues, the exchange fund for our state is being replenished,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

He said “inspections and stabilisation measures” were being carried out across the newly occupied areas, as well as humanitarian work.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday the army was using air strikes, drone attacks and artillery fire to halt further Ukrainian advances.

It said it had cleared a Ukrainian-occupied village and that its forces had killed at least 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers since the start of the operation.

Putin formally appointed Mr Dyumin to repel the Kursk offensive on Tuesday, amid rumours he is dissatisfied with his top generals for allowing it to spread so far.

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The 51-year-old guarded Putin for his first two terms as president.

In a 2016 interview with Kommersant newpaper, he recalled protecting the Russian leader from a bear in the early 2000s. The animal had wandered up to a glass door in one of Putin’s residences while the Russian leader was sleeping inside.

“We looked each other in the eyes, he stepped back a bit. I opened the door and unloaded the entire cartridge of my pistol under his legs,” Mr Dyumin said. “I felt pity for the bear.”

The animal retreated and Putin later praised him for sparing the bear, he added.

Mr Dyumin was appointed governor of Tula region in 2016, where he gained a reputation as an effective and relatively popular administrator. Several of Putin’s other bodyguards have been promoted without such success.

This year he was made head of the state council, an advisory body to Putin, in what was seen as possible preparation for higher office.

His new job dealing with the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk will reinforce his reputation as one of Putin’s most trusted lieutenants, having previously been appointed to run the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency.

Mr Dyumin is sanctioned by both the UK and US for his role in the annexation of the occupied peninsula of Crimea and the war in Ukraine.

The appointment was hailed by Russian military bloggers.

“Dyumin’s appointment means Putin’s team takes full control of the situation in order to stop the fraud window dressing, and also to begin to solve the problem rather than try to freeze it,” wrote Rybar, one of the most influential pro-Kremlin voices.

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