Ukrainian forces launched a surprise offensive into the border region of Kursk in August 2024, capturing more than two dozen towns and villages in the most significant cross-border attack on Russian soil since World War II [File: AFP]By AFP and DPAPublished On 6 Apr 20266 Apr 2026A Russian court has jailed the former governor of Kursk in a high-profile corruption case linked to Ukraine’s incursion into the border region.
Alexei Smirnov was sentenced on Monday to 14 years in a penal colony after being found guilty of failing to ensure strong fortifications along the border due to corruption.
Ukrainian troops captured large swathes of land in a surprise offensive launched in August 2024, encountering little resistance, due in part to substandard Russian defences.
The Kremlin then launched a crackdown targeting top regional and military officials over the failure to stop the incursion, which came two and a half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
According to the verdict, the 52-year-old Smirnov – who pleaded guilty – had accepted bribes from construction firms contracted to build defensive fortifications.
Media reports revealed that anti-tank barriers had been built using cheap materials that could not withstand Ukrainian military equipment.
The court also imposed a fine of 400 million roubles ($4.9m) and a 10-year work ban.
The court ruling said more than 20 million roubles ($220,000) were confiscated from Smirnov’s assets.
Smirnov had become governor of Kursk in May 2024. In December of the same year, he resigned from office and was later remanded in custody.
Smirnov confessed and said his predecessor, Roman Starovoit, had recommended the practice of accepting bribes.
Staravoit had been the one to report the completion of the defence facilities to his superiors. He then became Russia’s transport minister until Russia’s President Vladimir Putin unexpectedly dismissed him in July 2025.
A short while later, he was found dead outdoors with a gunshot wound to the head, which investigators described as a suicide.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, in which it succeeded in leveraging a single division of 11,000 soldiers to pin down an estimated 78,000 Russian soldiers and slowed Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine, was an embarrassment for Putin, as it marked the first military incursion into Russia by a foreign army in decades.
The Russian army was eventually able to push the Ukrainians out of Kursk in April 2025, with the reported help of thousands of North Korean troops.
