Ukrainian troops operate a tank near the Russian border, in the Sumy region of Ukraine on Aug. 12. Ukraine has destroyed a critical bridge in Russia's western Kursk region as it tries to sever Russian supply lines and consolidate territorial gains from its surprise offensive.DAVID GUTTENFELDER/The New York Times News Service
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday the daring military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks by Moscow across the border, hours before the Ukrainian military said it tried to repel another such attack near Kyiv.
Air defence units were engaged early on Monday on the outskirts of Kyiv trying to defend against Russia’s air attack, Kyiv’s military administration said on the Telegram messaging app. Witnesses heard the blasts in what sounded like air defense units at work.
Sunday was the first time Mr. Zelensky clearly stated the aim of the operation, which was launched on Aug. 6. Previously, he had said the operation aimed to protect communities in the bordering Sumy region from constant shelling.
In his nightly address, Mr. Zelensky said, “It is now our primary task in defensive operations over all: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions. This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region.”
This weekend, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and struck a second one nearby, disrupting supply lines as it pressed a stunning cross-border incursion that began Aug. 6, officials said.
Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge on the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo will impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces repelling Ukraine’s incursion, although Moscow could still use pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukraine’s air force chief, Lieutenant-General Mykola Oleshchuk, released a video on Friday of an air strike that cut the bridge in two.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops hit a second bridge in Russia, according to Lt.-Gen. Oleshchuk and Russian regional Governor Alexei Smirnov.
As of Sunday morning, there were no officials giving the exact location of the second bridge attack. But Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim, in the village of Zvannoe, had been struck.
According to Russia’s Mash news site, the attacks left only one intact bridge in the area. The Associated Press could not immediately verify these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian strikes would further complicate Moscow’s attempts to replenish its forces and evacuate civilians.
Glushkovo is about 12 kilometres north of the Ukrainian border, and approximately 16 kilometres northwest of the main battle zone in Kursk. Zvannoe is located another eight kilometres to the northwest.
Kyiv previously has said little about the goals of its push into Russia with tanks and other armoured vehicles, the largest attack on the country since the Second World War, which took the Kremlin by surprise and saw scores of villages and hundreds of prisoners fall into Ukrainian hands.
The Ukrainians drove deep into the region in several directions, facing little resistance and sowing chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians fled. Ukraine’s commander in chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his forces had advanced across 1,000 square kilometres of the region, although it was not possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces effectively control.
In his remarks on creating a buffer zone, Mr. Zelensky said Ukrainian forces “achieved good and much-needed results.”
Analysts say that although Ukraine could try to consolidate its gains inside Russia, it would be risky, given Kyiv’s limited resources, because its own supply lines extending deep into Kursk would be vulnerable.
The incursion has proven Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and boosted its morale, which was sapped by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of grinding Russian gains in the eastern Donbas region.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said while visiting China in May that Moscow’s offensive that month in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.
That offensive opened a new front and displaced thousands of Ukrainians. The attacks were a response to Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s Belgorod region, Mr. Putin said.
On Saturday, Mr. Zelensky urged Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on the use of Western weapons to attack targets deeper in Russia, including in Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow “of any ability to advance and cause destruction” if granted sufficient long-range capabilities.
“It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that hinder us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war demands. The bravery of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions from our partners,” Mr. Zelensky said on the social platform X.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers alleged U.S.-made HIMARS launchers have been used to destroy bridges on the Seim. These claims could not be independently verified.
Ukraine’s leaders have repeatedly sought authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure used to pummel Ukraine’s energy facilities and other civilian targets, including with retrofitted Soviet-era “glide bombs” attacking Ukraine’s industrial east in recent months.
Moscow also appears to have increased attacks on Kyiv, targeting it on Sunday with ballistic missiles for a third time this month, according to the head of the municipal military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post the “almost identical” August strikes on the capital “most likely used” North Korean-supplied KN-23 missiles.
Another attempt to target Kyiv followed at about 7 a.m. Mr. Popko said, this time with Iskander cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defences struck down all the missiles fired in both attacks on the city, he said.
Elsewhere, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said on Saturday that the safety situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is deteriorating.
International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi urged “maximum restraint from all sides” after an IAEA team at the plant reported an explosive carried by a drone detonated just outside its protected area.
According to Mr. Grossi, the impact was “close to the essential water sprinkle ponds” and about 100 metres from the only power line supplying the plant. The IAEA team at the plant has reported intense military activity in the surrounding area in the past week, it said.
Kyiv and Moscow have traded blame for attacks near the power plant since it was captured by Russian forces early in the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Mr. Grossi said the blaze had caused “considerable damage” but posed no immediate danger to nuclear safety.
Russian ally Belarus, meanwhile, has massed “nearly a third” of its army along its border with Ukraine, according to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Mr. Lukashenko told Russian state TV that Minsk was responding to the deployment of more than 120,000 Ukrainian troops to the 1,084-kilometre frontier. Belarus’s professional army numbers upward of 60,000.
Ukrainian border force spokesman Andrii Demchenko said Sunday it had not observed any sign of a Belarusian buildup.
Mr. Lukashenko, in power for three decades, has relied on Russian support to suppress the biggest protests in Belarus’s post-Soviet history after his 2020 reelection, widely seen as a sham both at home and abroad. He allowed Russian troops to use Belarus’s territory to invade Ukraine and let Moscow deploy some tactical nuclear weapons on its soil.
- With a file from Reuters.