Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region was aimed at creating a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border.
This was the first time Zelenskyy explicitly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on August 6. Earlier, he had said the operation was aimed at protecting 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, officials said, and cross-border incursions that began on Aug. 6 continued.
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 attack second bridge in RussiaAccording 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 remained in the area after the attacks. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm the claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian attacks would further complicate Moscow’s efforts to replenish its forces in Kursk 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 the scope and goals of its incursion into Russia with tanks and other armored vehicles. The biggest attack on the country It was the biggest incident since World War II, catching the Kremlin by surprise and leaving several villages and hundreds of prisoners in Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainian troops advanced into the Kursk region in several directions, facing little resistance and causing chaos and panic as thousands of civilians fled the region. Ukraine’s commander in chief, General Oleksandr Sirsky, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles) of territory, although it was not possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces actually controlled.
Zelensky said the Ukrainian military 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.
The move in Kursk bears resemblance to Ukraine’s September 2022 Lightning Operation, led by Sirsky, in which its forces took advantage of Russian manpower shortages and a lack of field fortifications to seize control of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
On Saturday, Zelensky urged Kiev’s allies to lift remaining sanctions. Western weapons will strike deep into RussiaHe said 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 in a post on the social platform X.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers have 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 devastated Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.
Moscow appears to have stepped up attacks on Kiev, hitting it with ballistic missiles for a third time on Sunday. Earlier this month, more than 100 bombings hit the city, 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 “probably” 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.
In a separate development, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that the security situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was deteriorating, amid reports of drone attacks nearby.
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged “maximum restraint from all parties” after an IAEA team deployed to the plant reported that explosives carried by a drone had detonated just outside the plant’s protected area.
The impact was “close to essential water spraying ponds” and about 100 metres (100 yards) from the only power line supplying the plant, according to Grossi’s statement. 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 around the power plant since it was captured by Russian forces at the start of the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi’s statement said the fire caused “considerable damage” but posed no immediate threat to nuclear safety.
Ukraine has repeatedly accused Russia of planning an attack and blamed the Ukrainian military for it. Last summer, Zelensky warned of possible explosives, saying Moscow may have planted explosives on the plant’s roof to blackmail Ukraine.
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’ post-Soviet history after his re-election in 2020, 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.