Hello and welcome to Newsower from the BBC World Service.

We're coming to you live from London.

I'm James Menendez.

And we're going to begin today in Ukraine, or rather just over the country's

northeastern border in Russia, because it seems as if Ukrainian troops have launched a

rare incursion into Russian territory, sending troops and armoured vehicles into the Kursk region.

That's certainly what President Putin is saying happened.

He's accused Ukraine's armed forces of carrying out what he called a large scale provocation with local

authorities saying at least 24 people have been injured so far in the fighting a state

of emergency has now been declared there.

The Ukrainian government has not commented officially,

although we will be hearing from a Ukrainian MP

in just a few minutes.

But first to our Ukraine correspondent James Waterhouse is in the

capital key. What happened with this incursion? Indeed, was there an incursion into

Russia? I think we can say there was an incursion something is going on you know you have a

flurry from Russian military bloggers local officials describing a sizable

offensive by hundreds of Ukrainian troops involving armored vehicles.

You have accompanying images that are quite closely shots.

The BBC has been able to verify them, so we're talking about an incursion across the border where several settlements

have reportedly been taken by Ukrainian forces and heavy fighting is continuing.

Where most of the chatter is coming from is on the Russian side from local official

...