Advance and Putin angry… Update on the Ukrainian breakthrough in the Kursk region

A Ukrainian incursion, Moscow getting carried away and kyiv remaining silent. For two days, the Russian army has reported fighting that “continues” in the Kursk region, bordering Ukraine, the scene since the day before of a breakthrough by Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops and targeted by strikes. According to the head of the Russian general staff, Valery Gerasimov, Ukrainian forces entered this Russian region on Tuesday with nearly 1,000 soldiers, a dozen tanks and twenty armored vehicles.

20 minutes takes stock of this incursion while this Wednesday the United States assured that Ukraine would have to account for its current military movements.

What happened in the Russian region of Kursk on Tuesday?

The Ukrainian army launched an assault in the Russian region of Kursk with “up to 1,000 soldiers and armoured vehicles”, the Russian general staff said, as it assured that it was doing everything to push Ukrainian soldiers out of its territory. At least five civilians were killed and 28 were injured, including children, in the strikes, according to Russian authorities. A source within the Ukrainian security services (SBU) claimed responsibility to AFP for the destruction in flight by a small drone of a Russian Mi-28 helicopter, which would be a “first in the history of war”.

Where is the Ukrainian breakthrough?

While official Russian communication is intended to be reassuring – the regional authorities still referring to a “stable and controlled” situation on Thursday – the picture painted by military experts is more alarming. On Wednesday evening, the Rybar channel, close to the Russian army, thus affirmed that Ukrainian forces had “taken the western half of [la ville de] “Sudja”. According to several analysts, the Ukrainian advance is actually concentrated around Sudja, a Russian town of around 5,500 inhabitants located about ten kilometers from the border and which houses a gas station still supplying Europe via Ukraine.

A blogger, Yuri Podoliaka, whose Telegram channel is followed by nearly three million subscribers, considered on Thursday morning that Sudja was “lost”, saying it was “filled with Ukrainian soldiers.” According to him, the Ukrainians have also advanced towards the city of Korenevo, more than 25 kilometers from the border.

In this photo released by the press office of the acting governor of the Kursk region, a building damaged during a recent shelling by Ukrainian troops during a cross-border attack on Russian territory, in the town of Sudja, August 6, 2024.
In this photo released by the press office of the acting governor of the Kursk region, a building damaged during a recent shelling by Ukrainian troops during a cross-border attack on Russian territory, in the town of Sudja, August 6, 2024.– SPUTNIK/SIPA

Yevgeny Shestopalov, a priest living in Sudja, said in a video released by Russian media that Sudja was “on fire” and that residents had taken refuge in his church. A local television station published footage showing destroyed buildings, debris and shell craters in the city center.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW)The US-based intelligence agency said in its latest report that Ukrainian forces had advanced up to 10 kilometres deep and penetrated “at least two Russian defence lines”.

Where are the evacuations?

Russian authorities have assured that “several thousand” people have left the border areas. The authorities of the Kursk region have, for their part, established a state of emergency on Wednesday in order to deal with a situation deemed “difficult” for the civilian population. Around 3,000 people have already been evacuated, including 1,500 in temporary accommodation centres, the regional authorities have announced.

In Ukraine, in the Sumy region, which faces Kursk, the authorities have ordered the “mandatory evacuation” of twenty-three localities, a measure that affects around 6,000 people, including 425 children, according to Governor Volodymyr Artioukh. The Russian National Guard has also announced that it has reinforced protection of the Kursk nuclear power plant, located around sixty kilometers from Ukraine.

What does Moscow say?

“The operation to destroy the Ukrainian army formations continues,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Thursday. According to the latter, the Russian military “thwarts” Ukrainian “attempts” to “penetrate deep” into the Kursk region and inflicts heavy losses on the opposing side.

The Russian army did not, however, report any new Ukrainian advances on Thursday. It had initially assured on Tuesday that it had forced Kiev’s troops to “withdraw” into Ukraine, before removing this allegation from one of its press releases. On Wednesday, Vladimir Putin appeared visibly angry on Russian television, denouncing a “large-scale provocation”, accusing Ukrainian troops of “firing indiscriminately with different types of weapons, including rockets, on civilian buildings, homes and ambulances”.

What does Ukraine say?

The Ukrainian authorities have been keeping a near-total silence on the situation since Tuesday and have not made any direct comments. The incursion is a consequence of Russian “aggression” against Ukraine, however, an adviser to the Ukrainian presidential administration, Mykhailo Podoliak, said on Thursday. However, he did not clearly attribute the attack to the Ukrainian army. “Russia has always believed that restrictive legal norms do not apply to it and that it can therefore attack the territories of neighboring countries with impunity and hypocritically demand… the inviolability of its own territory,” Mykhailo Podoliak added. “But war is war, with its own rules, the aggressor inevitably pays the corresponding consequences.”

In his daily address on Wednesday evening, Volodymyr Zelensky praised the “bravery” of Ukrainian forces, without explicitly referring to the incursion. “The more pressure we put on Russia, […] “The closer we get to peace,” he added.

Why did you launch this incursion now?

This operation is taking place as Russian soldiers have been gradually gaining ground in eastern Ukraine for months, facing a Ukrainian army lacking new recruits and ammunition. Thus, a Ukrainian military expert, Serguiï Zgourets, estimated that Kiev seemed through this incursion to seek to divert Russian forces from other sectors of the front (notably Kharkiv or in the eastern region of Donetsk), where they have been pushing for several months. The geography of this area in Russia makes it possible to “effectively carry out this type of dissuasive action against the enemy with a reduced force and this is probably what the Ukrainian army is doing,” Zgourets specified to AFP.

Several Ukrainian incursions into Russia, notably in the Belgorod and Kursk regions, have taken place since the start of the massive attack on Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian army claimed to have repelled them but some of them led it to resort to artillery and aviation, as is the case for the one that began on Tuesday.

And what does Washington, kyiv’s primary financial supporter, say?

The United States said Wednesday that it would contact kyiv to learn more about the “objectives” of the incursion, according to White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. It should be recalled that in May, US President Joe Biden authorized Kiev to use American weapons to strike targets on Russian territory near the Kharkiv region (northeast), which was under Russian attack. But US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recalled that “nothing [n’avait] “changed” in the policy of the United States, which opposes any Ukrainian strike further into Russian territory.

“It’s a bit strong to call this a provocation given that Russia has violated the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in response to Vladimir Putin’s comments.


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