Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that the daring military invasion of the Russian Kursk region was intended to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from Moscow across the border.
It was the first time that Zelensky clearly stated the goal of the operation, which began on August 6. He had previously said the goal of the operation was to protect communities in the neighboring Sumy region from constant shelling. Zelensky said our main task now in defensive operations as a whole is to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and to carry out maximum counteroffensives. This includes creating a buffer zone on the territory of the aggressor – our operation in the Kursk region, he said in his evening address.
Over the weekend, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and hit a second nearby, cutting off supply lines as it launched a spectacular border attack on August 6, officials said. Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge over the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo would hamper the flow of supplies to Russian forces repelling the Ukrainian onslaught, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. The head of the Ukrainian Air Force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, released a video on Friday of an airstrike that cut the bridge in half.
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, there was no official information on the exact location of the second bridge attack. However, Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim River in the village of Zvannoe had been hit.
According to Russian news site Mash, only one bridge in the area remained intact after the attacks. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian attacks would further complicate Moscow’s attempts to build up its troops in Kursk and evacuate civilians. Glushkovo is about 12 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border and about 16 kilometers northwest of the main battle area in Kursk. Zvannoe is another 8 kilometers northwest.
In search of a buffer zone in Kursk
Kyiv has so far said little about the scope and purpose of its advance of tanks and other armored vehicles into Russia, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and resulted in dozens of villages and hundreds of prisoners falling into Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainians have pushed deep into the Kursk region in several directions, encountering little resistance and spreading chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled the area. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his troops had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers of the region, although it has not been possible to independently verify what exactly Ukrainian forces actually control.
Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had achieved good and much-needed results. Analysts say that while Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains in Russia, doing so would be risky given Kyiv’s limited resources, leaving its own supply lines, which extend deep into Kursk, vulnerable. The incursion has demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and has boosted its morale, which was weakened by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of tedious Russian gains in the eastern Donbass region.
The invasion of Kursk was similar to Ukraine’s September 2022 lightning operation led by Syrsky, in which Ukrainian forces took advantage of a lack of Russian manpower and field fortifications to regain control of the northeastern Kharkiv region.
Zelenskyj asks for permission to penetrate deeper into Russia
On Saturday, Zelensky called on Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on the use of Western weapons to attack low-lying targets inside Russia, including Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow of any opportunity to advance and wreak destruction if they were granted sufficient long-range capabilities.
It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that prevent us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war requires. The courage of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions by our partners, Zelensky said in a post on the social platform X.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers have claimed that American HIMARS missile launchers were used to destroy bridges on the Seim River. These claims have not been independently verified.
Ukraine’s leadership has repeatedly requested authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure to bomb Ukrainian energy facilities and other civilian targets, including retrofitted Soviet-era glide bombs that have devastated Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.
Moscow also appears to have stepped up its attacks on Kyiv. On Sunday, it attacked the city with ballistic missiles for the third time this month, according to the head of the city’s military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post that the almost identical attacks on the capital in August most likely used KN-23 missiles from North Korea.
At around 7 a.m., another attempted attack on Kiev followed, this time with Iskander cruise missiles, Popko said. Ukrainian air defenses shot down all missiles in both attacks on the city, he said.
Fears about the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant are increasing
In a separate development, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that the security situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was deteriorating following reports of a drone attack nearby.
Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on all sides to exercise maximum restraint after an IAEA team stationed at the plant reported that a drone-borne explosive device had detonated just outside the protected area.
According to Grossi’s testimony, the impact occurred near the main water sprinkler pools and about 100 meters from the only power line that supplies the plant. The IAEA team at the plant reported intense military activity in the area last week, it said.
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for attacks around the plant since it was captured by Russian forces early in the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi’s statement said the fire caused significant damage but did not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety.
Ukraine has repeatedly claimed that Russia is planning an attack and blamed Ukrainian forces for it. Last summer, Zelensky warned of possible explosive devices that he said Moscow might have placed on the roof of the power plant in an attempt to blackmail Ukraine.
Belarus announces deployment of troops to the border with Ukraine
According to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russia’s ally Belarus has concentrated almost a third of its army on the border with Ukraine. Lukashenko told Russian state television that Minsk was a response to the stationing of more than 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers on the 1,084-kilometer-long border. Belarus’ professional army has over 60,000 men.
Ukrainian border guard spokesman Andrii Demchenko said on Sunday that they had not observed any signs of a troop buildup in Belarus. Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades, has relied on Russian support to quell the biggest protests in Belarus’ post-Soviet history after his re-election in 2020. The election was widely viewed as a farce at home and abroad. He allowed Russian troops to use Belarusian territory to invade Ukraine and allowed Moscow to deploy some tactical nuclear weapons on its soil.
Read more
- UN regulator: Safety at Ukrainian nuclear power plant ‘deteriorating’
- Ukraine’s top commander says his forces now control nearly 390 square miles of Russia’s Kursk region
- Russia seeks to contain Ukraine’s advance and orders new evacuations in Belgorod after attack surprises Kremlin
