Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said it was a “daring act”. Military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region It aims to create a buffer zone to prevent attacks by Moscow from across the border.
it was the first time Zelensky He clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on August 6. Earlier, he had said that the aim of the operation was to protect communities in the border Sumy region from constant shelling.
Zelenskyy said that “now our primary task in the overall defensive operations is: to destroy as much of the Russian combat potential as possible and to deliver maximum retaliatory action. This includes creating a buffer zone in the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region,” he said in his nightly address.
This weekend Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and attacked another nearby, disrupting supply lines and continuing cross-border incursions that began on Aug. 6, officials said.
Pro-Kremlin military bloggers believed the destruction of the first bridge over the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo would disrupt the flow of supplies to Russian forces fighting an invasion of Ukraine, though Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, released a video on Friday of an airstrike that cut the bridge in two.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops attacked a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and Russian regional governor Alexei Smirnov.
As of Sunday morning, no official had given the exact location of the attack on the second bridge. But Russian Telegram channels claimed that the second bridge over the Seim River in the village of Zvanoe had been attacked.
According to Russia’s Mash news site, only one bridge remains in the area after the attacks. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian attacks would further complicate Moscow’s efforts to replenish its military forces and evacuate civilians.
Glushkovo is about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) north of the Ukrainian border, and about 16 kilometres (10 mi) northwest of the main battle area at Kursk. Zvyanoye is located 8 kilometres (5 mi) to the northwest.
Kiev had previously said little about its goal of sweeping into Russia with tanks and other armoured vehicles, the biggest assault on the country since World War II, which caught the Kremlin by surprise and left several villages and hundreds of prisoners in Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainian troops pushed deep into the region in several directions, facing little resistance and causing chaos and panic as thousands of civilians fled. Ukraine’s commander in chief, Gen. Oleksandr Sirsky, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles) of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces effectively controlled.
Demand for buffer zone by both sides
In his comments on creating the buffer zone, Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had “achieved good and much-needed results.”
Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, that would be risky given Kiev’s limited resources and its own supply lines deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.
The offensive has proven Ukraine’s ability to take the initiative and boosted its morale, which had been weakened by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of Russian advances in the eastern Donbass region.
On the other hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a visit to China in May that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region that month was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.
That attack opened a new front and displaced thousands of Ukrainians. Putin said the strikes were a response to Ukraine’s shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region.
“I have said publicly that if this continues, we will be forced to create a safety zone, a sanitation zone,” he said. “That’s what we are doing.”
Ukraine’s move in Kursk bears resemblance to its Lightning Operation led by Sirsky in September 2022, in which his forces took advantage of Russian manpower shortages and a lack of field fortifications to seize control of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Zelenskyy asks for permission to strike deeper into Russia
On Saturday, Zelenskyy urged Kiev’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on the use of Western weapons to strike targets in Russia’s interior, including Kursk, saying that if his troops were provided with sufficient long-range capabilities they could deny Moscow “any ability to advance and cause destruction.”
“It is important that our partners remove the obstacles that prevent us from weakening the Russian positions as this war demands. The bravery of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of necessary decision-making on the part of our partners,” Zelensky said on the social platform X.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers alleged that US-made HIMARS launchers were used to destroy bridges across the Seim. These claims could not be independently confirmed.
Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian airbases and other infrastructure that have been used to destroy Ukrainian energy facilities and other civilian targets, including Soviet-era “glide bombs” that have attacked Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.
Moscow has also stepped up attacks on Kiev, hitting it with ballistic missiles for the third time this month on Sunday, according to the head of the municipal military administration. Serhiy Popko said in a Telegram post that “almost identical” attacks on the capital in August “most likely” used KN-23 missiles supplied by North Korea.
Popko said that at about 7 a.m. another attempt was made to target Kiev, this time with Iskander cruise missiles. He said Ukrainian air defense shot down all the missiles fired in both attacks on the city.
Fears grow for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
On the other hand, the head of the United Nations nuclear monitoring agency said on Saturday that the security situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is deteriorating.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged “maximum restraint from all parties” after an IAEA team at the plant reported an explosive carried by a drone had detonated just outside the plant’s protected area.
According to Grossi, the impact was “close to essential water spraying ponds” and about 100 metres (100 yards) from the only power line supplying the plant. The IAEA team at the plant has reported intense military activity in the surrounding area over the past week, it said.
Kiev and Moscow have blamed each other for attacks near the power plant since Russian forces took it over at the start of the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi said the fire had caused “considerable damage” but posed no immediate threat to nuclear safety.
Belarus says it is deploying more troops to Ukraine border
Russia’s ally Belarus has deployed “almost a third” of its military along its border with Ukraine, according to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Lukashenko told Russian state TV that Minsk was responding to the deployment of more than 120,000 Ukrainian troops along the 1,084-kilometre (674-mile) border. Belarus’ professional army numbers more than 60,000.
Ukrainian border guard spokesman Andrei Demchenko said on Sunday he had seen no signs of a mobilization of Belarusian forces.
Lukashenko, in power for three decades, has relied on Russian support to suppress the biggest protests in Belarus’s post-Soviet history after winning re-election in 2020 in a move seen as a sham both at home and abroad. He allowed Russian troops to use Belarus’ territory to invade Ukraine and permitted Moscow to deploy some tactical nuclear weapons on its soil.