Thousands of Russian troops are bogged down on the south side of the Seim River in Russia’s Kursk Oblast because Ukraine blew up the three bridges crossing it, a source with direct knowledge of the situation told The War Zone on Tuesday, the 15th day of the invasion.
“There are about 3,000 Russian troops there,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. The Russians have little room to maneuver because the Seim River snakes around that part of Kursk Oblast to the Ukrainian border and Ukrainian troops are pushing to the west toward Glushkovo. As we mentioned yesterday, it is part of an effort to create a border buffer zone.
“They will not fight,” the source said of the Russian forces there outside of the border village of Tetkino. “Most of them are inexperienced and demotivated.”
Ukraine is also attempting to push eastward through that part of Kursk by taking Tetkino, the source added. The goal is to trap Russian troops in a pincer. Though under constant bombardment, Tetkino remains in Russian hands.
His estimate on Russian troop levels there aligns with earlier reporting by Germany’s Bild news outlet on Telegram Tuesday.
Ukrainian troops “are 5 km away from the Seim River and the cauldron closure,” Bild wrote. “According to Ukrainian data, between 2,000 and 3,000 Russian soldiers remain inside the cauldron.”
“The state border between Russia and Ukraine in the south and west of the cauldron is prepared for defense,” BILD open data analysis expert Julian Röpke explained. “But it will be difficult for the Russians to defend themselves if the Ukrainian Armed Forces attack from the east. In addition, in the west, the Ukrainians have already crossed the border and taken control of a small area of Russian territory of 15 square kilometers up to the Seim River. The Otruba farm is located there.”
Russian forces “now have a simple choice: either fight and defend this territory or retreat,” Röpke added. “Apparently, both options are fatal for them. But it must be said frankly that this battle is not decisive. Because we do not know how much strength Ukraine has left.”
Retreating forces could conceivably try to cross by boat or swim, but they would have to leave behind their vehicles and equipment. In addition, they would be doing so without cover, in small numbers, and under threat of attacks by Ukrainian aviation, artillery and drones.
Yesterday, we wrote about how Ukraine is playing whack-a-mole with pontoon bridges Russia is building over the Seim River to avoid encirclement after Ukraine blew up the existing spans. Today, visual evidence emerged in the form of drone video showing Ukraine targeting those make-shift crossings.
Russia, meanwhile, continues to build pontoon bridges.
The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) has yet to comment on the Seim River situation but continues to claim it is pushing back Ukrainian advances in Kursk.
“Units of the Sever Group of Forces supported by Army Aviation and artillery thwarted the attempts of the enemy’s assault detachments to launch attacks near Borki, Korenevo, Kremyanoye, and Russkaya Kanapelka,” it claimed Tuesday on Telegram. “The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue reconnaissance and search operations to locate and eliminate the enemy’s small sabotage and reconnaissance groups in forest belts attempting to get to the depth of the Russian territory.”
Army Aviation, artillery, and ground troops “inflicted losses on manpower and hardware clusters of the AFU 22nd, 115th Mechanized brigades, 80th, and 82nd Air Assault Brigades near Apanasovka, Borki, Viktorovka, Kositsa, Lyubimovka, Plekhovo, Tolsty Lug, and west of Bogdanovka.”
To better handle the invasion, Russia is creating new battle groups.
“The Russian Defense Ministry announced the creation of three new troop groups – “Belgorod,” “Bryansk,” and “Kursk,” the independent, U.S.-funded Ukrainian Radio Liberty news outlet reported on Tuesday. “The new groups were created after the successful offensive of the Ukrainian army in the Russian Kursk region. Border raids took place in both the Bryansk and Belgorod regions.”
Previously, separate troop groups of the Russian army operated only in the territory of Ukraine, the outlet explained.
“The actions of the army groups will be managed by the Coordination Council for Military Security of Border Territories, the launch of which was announced on Tuesday by Defense Minister Andrei Belousov,” Radio Liberty wrote. “It includes deputy ministers, regional leaders, and representatives of the General Staff. It must meet at least once a week.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered his troops to retake Kursk by Oct. 1 while not withdrawing from key areas in Donbas, the RBC–Ukraine news outlet reported.
The job of recapturing Kursk should not involve “withdrawing forces” from key areas where Russia is conducting an offensive in Donbas. “This primarily concerns from the Pokrovsk and Toretsk directions. Currently, the occupiers’ offensive in these directions has not slowed down – instead, it has only intensified.”
The Russians are now trying to deploy a “mix” of units to the Kursk region from all fronts except Pokrovsk and Toretsk, the publication added. “This, in turn, indicates that the enemy currently has very few ‘free’ forces and reserves. Secondly, it shows that the limited successes in Pokrovsk and Toretsk weigh more on the Kremlin’s scales than regaining control over the Kursk region.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered further insights into his goals for the Kursk invasion.
“This operation has become our largest investment in the process of liberating Ukrainians from Russian captivity – we have already captured the largest number of Russian prisoners in a single operation, and this is a significant result, this is one of our goals, and our actions,” he said in a speech during the Meeting of Heads of Ukraine’s Foreign Diplomatic Missions. “At present, the Russian border area opposite our Sumy region has been mostly cleared of Russian military presence. And this is also one of our operation’s goals, tactical goals.”
“As of today, our forces control over 1,250 square kilometers of the enemy’s territory and 92 settlements,” he claimed. “The strengthening of our positions, the stabilization of designated areas, and the replenishment of the exchange fund for Ukraine are ongoing. In general, And of course, we cannot yet speak publicly about the units involved in the designated areas of the Kursk region.”
Zelensky also chided the international community for worrying about threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Just a few months ago, many people around the world, if they had heard that we were planning such an operation like the one in the Kursk region, would have said that it was impossible and that it would cross the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has,” he explained.
Once again, he beseeched his international supporters for permission to use donated long-range weapons inside Russia.
“If our partners lifted all the current restrictions on the use of weapons on Russian territory, we would not need to physically enter particularly the Kursk region to protect our Ukrainian citizens in the border communities and eliminate Russia’s potential for aggression,” he said.
As Russian troops press closer to Pokrovsk and Toretsk, a controversial member of the Ukrainian parliament’s National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee blasted what she said is the government’s decision to leave Donetsk Oblast vulnerable.
“We had a rather successful meeting of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine today, but I can’t think about anything else, except what is happening in the Donetsk region,” Mariana Bezuhla said Tuesday on Telegram. “Our units are withdrawn from there, leaving entire front lines to their own devices, ammunition is not added, the Russians pass through empty fortifications.”
As a result, “the occupation of Pokrovsk is a matter of the near future, and Toretsk is ending its last days. It looks as if we are handing over the Donetsk region, the theater of hostilities for the 11th year of the war, the land on which thousands of Ukrainians laid down their lives for Ukraine. But after Pokrovsk, there is a direct road to Pavlograd, where there are no fortifications at all, and then there is the Dnipro. Behind Toretsk is the Kramatorsk agglomeration, and then Kharkiv oblast.”
“I’m in a state of shock, sorry,” she added. “Syrsky brings the war to some new level of maneuvers of the Second World War, where the bets are on the loss or acquisition of entire regions, but what is the price and what are the prospects? I am sure that he does not have clear answers either. A game of ‘miss or miss.’ The surprises are not over. The maneuvers of the Ukrainian Zhukov continue.”
Bezuhla gained notoriety earlier this year for quitting Zelensky’s Servant of the People Party and constant criticism of former Ukrainian Armed Forces commander-in-chief Valeri Zaluzhyi, according to a profile in the Ukrainian Babel news outlet.
A Ukrainian brigade commander provided an assessment of the situation that matched Bezhula’s.
“One Ukrainian artillery brigade commander in eastern Ukraine told the Financial Times that part of the reason for the Russian advance was Kyiv moving its scarce resources north,” the publication reported. “His troops were back to rationing shells for their canons — the first time since U.S. aid to Ukraine was held up by Congress — because ammunition had been reallocated for the incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.”
,
Some Russian milbloggers are suggesting that as Moscow is moving troops to defend Kursk, Ukraine is preparing to launch a new counteroffensive in Zaporizhizhia Oblast.
“Having waited for the transfer of our forces to the Kursk direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces began an offensive in the area,” the Romanov Light Telegram channel stated on Tuesday.”
It then took a swipe at Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian Army.
“Gerasimov, are you sleeping?” Romanov chided.
Boris Rozhin, writing under the Colonelcassad Telegram channel, surmised that Ukraine is preparing to attack the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which Russia has held since the early days of the full-on war.
“In addition to active operations in the Kursk region and potential auxiliary strikes on the border of the Belgorod and Bryansk regions, the enemy is taking certain measures to concentrate forces for a potential strike on the Zaporizhzhya NPP,” Rozhin wrote. “The strike may be a combined operation.”
Ukrainian troops are still about 20 miles southwest of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in Kurchatov, and officials in Kyiv say they have no plans on capturing it. But that does not appear to be stopping Russian troops from digging trenches there. A review of imagery from Aug. 19 provided by Planet Labs aligns with what is depicted in the photo below.
One of Ukraine’s MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters was seen in a video released by the Ukrainian Air Force employing French-made AASM-250 Hammer precision-guided bombs.
Ukrainian “Air Force aviation aviation strikes enemy targets in the Kursk direction every day,” Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk claimed on Telegram. “In the video, a Ukrainian fighter jet de-Nazifies an underground enemy control center with an AASM Hammer guided aerial bomb.”
Ukraine’s Airborne Assault Troops released video of a German-donated Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicle belonging to the 95th Separate Assault “Poliska” Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacking a Russian position in the Kursk village of Mala Loknya.
“Quite well-equipped firing points and fighting positions of the Russians came under a powerful blow of the Poliska paratroopers,” the Airborne Assault Troops Telegram channel proclaimed. “The enemy suffered significant losses in manpower, equipment and other material resources.”
It appears that Ukraine captured another Russian T-90M tank in Kursk. Ukrainian forces reportedly took control of the tank near the town of Snagost, which is on the western edge of the advance.
A massive fire at a Russian oil depot in Proletarsk, Rostov region, has grown significantly, now covering 10,000 square meters (107,640 square feet), Proletarsk’s district head Valery Gornich told the state-run TASS news agency, adding that 520 firefighters and four aircraft were deployed to contain the blaze.
The fire broke out early Sunday after Russian air defense systems shot down Ukrainian drones in the town of Proletarsk, according to the Moscow Times. Ukraine’s military said that its drones targeted the Kavkaz oil and petroleum storage facility.
“This is how, step by step, the war enters the enemy’s territory,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschuck said Tuesday on Telegram. “This is the Rostov region of the Russian Federation.”
Some Ukrainian troops are apparently turning to Escoprt BTS410 semi-automatic bullpup shotguns as a way of defending against Russian drones. The weapon fires .410 caliber shells.
In a move as old as military occupation, Ukrainian troops in the Kursk city of Sudzha took down a monument of one of the enemy’s historic figures, In this case, it was dedicated to Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
After running over a dog, a Ukrainian truck towing an armored vehicle was hit by a Russian Lancet drone in the Kursk village of Rubanina. The video below shows that encounter, ending up with the vehicles in flames.
It turns out that a Russian unit bragging about downing a Ukraining drone was mistaken. The drone instead reportedly was a Russian Zala surveillance drone.
“The guys are awesome!” the Russian Military Hub Telegram channel said sarcastically. “Not only did they lose their copter, but they also shot down our FOOL, oh, excuse me, our ZALA. I would call this act ‘Imbecility and Courage.’ But it’s better to just say: Imbecility.”
Ukrainian soldiers going through the belongings of a Russian soldier captured in Kursk claim they found an unusual item in his bag – a leather bondage mask complete with a zipper over the mouth.
That’s it for now.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com