As part of a plan to create a “buffer zone” along its borders, Ukraine is pushing westward in Kursk Oblast. On the 14th day of the invasion, Russian media and milbloggers say Ukraine destroyed the last of three bridges over the Seim River in that part of the battlefield. That is isolating Moscow’s forces there who now have to rely on pontoon bridges for resupply, which are also being struck nearly as soon as they are put in place.
Ukraine’s top general on Monday offered scant details about the invasion.
“We are achieving new results in Kursk,” Col.-Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Telegram, providing no specifics or proof. “We have replenished the exchange fund,” a reference to Russian prisoners of war that can be swapped for Ukrainian troops held by Russia.
In his first public statement on the goals of the operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine is trying to establish a buffer zone inside Russia.
“It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening speech Sunday. “This includes creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory – our operation in the Kursk region. Everything that inflicts losses on the Russian army, Russian state, their military-industrial complex, and their economy helps prevent the war from expanding and brings us closer to a just end to this aggression – a just peace for Ukraine.”
“Buffer zone” is a phrase used by Russian President Vladimir Putin to describe the goal of his now-sputtering Kharkiv offensive.
The Ukrainian Marines, meanwhile, said that they captured another village on the invasion’s western salient.
“Marines of Ukraine, together with other units of the Defense Forces, are at the forefront of combat missions in the Kursk region of the Russian Federation,” the Ukrainian Navy said on Telegram Monday. “Soldiers of the 501st separate battalion of marines drop a tricolor rag in one of the settlements.”
That was an apparent reference to the village of Apanasovka, where video emerged of a Ukrainian marine taking down the Russian tricolor flag. The village would be part of any westward push toward the border town of Tetkino.
The War Zone could not independently confirm that claim.
The Kremlin-connected Rybar Telegram channel on Monday suggested that the toughest fighting for Russia is taking place near the village of Glushkovo, on the battlefield’s western-most axis. That’s where the Ukrainian Air Force on Friday bombed the first of the three bridges over the Seim River, which snakes around that part of Kursk to the Ukrainian border.
“The most difficult situation is developing in the Glushkovsky district,” Rybar said Monday. “In the morning, Ukrainian aviation destroyed the last bridge in the district across the Seim River in the village of Karyzh. Thus, the evacuation of the population and the supply of the Russian troop group now entirely depends on the number of boats and the deployment of a sufficient number of pontoons. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are creating conditions for preparing a bridgehead before an offensive in this area.”
Former Zelensky spokesperson Iulia Mandel confirmed the destruction of the bridge.
The Ukrainian Air Force, however, has yet to comment. It did confirm it destroyed a second bridge on Sunday, two days after it said it struck the first of the bridges.
There has been visual confirmation that Russia has been building pontoon crossings.
In addition, there are claims that Ukraine struck at least one of those make-shift crossings. Visualized data provided by NASA’s Fire Information For Resource Management Systems (FIRMS) shows what appears to be a fire just to the east of that location.
Satellite imagery shows that pontoon bridge is no longer there.
These bridges are in range of a wide array of Ukrainian aerial and ground-based guided weapons. Ukraine’s Air Force can strike them with JDAM-ER or Hammer standoff guided bombs among other munitions while GMLRS guided rockets fired by a HIMARS or M270 system can strike them from the ground.
Ukrainian forces, on the other hand, don’t need bridges to attack because they are advancing south of the river.
In addition to pushing toward the western part of Kursk salient, Ukraine is also making a move east, according to the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategy (CDS) think tank.
“The sides are deploying reserves to the Belitsa and Giri areas of Kursk Oblast, where combat clashes are expected to occur in the next day or two,” CDS said in its latest emailed assessment.
They are also pushing north as well, according to the latest Institute for the Study of War control map.
Adding to Russia’s troubles, Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drones are providing a constant threat to Russian activities on a key section of the E38 highway, linking Ryslk and Lgov
Ukraine’s 82nd Air Assault Brigade released video of several intense ambushes of Russian troops in Kursk. Warning, some of these scene are quite graphic.
Ukraine also released video of its mechanized troops advancing in an undisclosed Kursk location. You can see the intensity of the house-to-house fighting there.
The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) continues to maintain that it is foiling the invasion.
“Units of the Sever Group of Forces supported by Army Aviation and artillery fire conduct reconnaissance and search operations to locate and eliminate small enemy sabotage groups in forest belts attempting to get deeper into the Russian territory to the south of Skrylevka and Sheptukhovka,” the MoD stated. “Attacks launched by assault detachments in the direction of Olgovka, Russkoye Porechnoye, and Cherkasskoye Porechnoye were repelled.
Aviation, artillery and ground forces “inflicted losses on manpower and hardware clusters of the AFU 22nd, 61st, 115th Mechanized Brigades, and 80th Air Assault Brigade near Borki, Bogdanovka, Vishnyovka, Viktorovka, Kositsa, Lyubimovka, Melovoy, Snagost, west of Martynovka, and southeast of Korenevo,” the MoD claimed…”The operation to neutralize the AFU units is in progress.”
The video below shows a Russian Ka-52 Alligator assault helicopter firing rockets at Ukrainian troops in Kursk.
The MoD also said it hit several targets in Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, which is a staging area for the invasion. However, its claim that they destroyed a donated M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) reportedly appears to be a bunch of hot air, literally. Instead of striking the MLRS, Russia reportedly hit an inflatable decoy made by the Czech Inflatech company. We could not independently verify that claim.
So far, Russia has moved some 5,000 troops from Ukraine to help defend Kursk, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported.
“The WSJ’s report of 5,000 Russian personnel partially coheres with a report that Russian forces had redeployed up to 11 battalions to the frontline in Kursk Oblast as of August 11,” the Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment.
Russia has also deployed a special motorized rifle regiment of the Aerospace Forces to counter according to Russian media.
Additionally, reports have emerged of Russian teenage conscripts being pulled from across that nation into the defense of Kursk.
As the push in Kursk continues, Ukraine is on the verge of losing two key cities in Donetsk Oblast.
“Heavy fighting continues in the Pokrovsky direction,” Syrskyi said today on Telegram. “Defense forces are also doing everything necessary to protect Toretsk.”
That may not be enough.
Russian forces “are moving toward the outskirts of Pokrovsk. We see — it is no secret,” Katerina Yanzhula, head of information policy in the Pokrovsk military administration, told The Washington Post on Monday. The city’s fate was unclear, she added.
“Maybe the situation there will somehow change — we hope that the enemy will stop somewhere on the approaches to Pokrovsk, that our troops will repel them.”
The plan to strike Kursk was a tension-filled, closely held effort, according to The Economist.
“Several scenarios were considered for an offensive push at the weakest points in the Russian line: a strike in Bryansk region in the north; a strike in Kursk region; a combination of the two; or more,” the publication reported. “The main objective was to draw troops away from the Donbas stranglehold, and to create bargaining chips for any future negotiation. General Syrsky kept his plans under wraps, sharing them only with a tight group of generals and security officials. He spoke to the president on a one-on-one basis, without his staff. The army’s intelligence did much of the reconnaissance, rather than leaving it to GUR, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, which was included only at a late stage.”
Though a Pentagon told us officials there were not consulted before Ukraine launched the invasion, Russia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry blamed the U.S.
During an announcement of a new $115 million military aid package for Ukraine, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said his country has no objection to its donated weapons being used in Kursk.
He emphasized that Denmark sees Ukraine’s military operations inside Russia as a part of Ukraine’s defense strategy, according to the Kyiv Independent.
“Self-defense can involve entering the aggressor’s territory. If, as part of this, you target the infrastructure or military facilities of the attacking party, then this is fully in line with the rules of war,” he said.
Rasmussen did not mention any specific weapon, but Denmark has provided Ukraine with F-16s.
U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner (R-Ohio) called on the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to use the long-range weapons it has received from the U.S. inside Russia.
“…a concern with the Biden administration’s restrictions…is Ukraine is finally in a position where they can hold Russia accountable,” Turner told Face the Nation on Sunday. “They have now entered into Russian territory. If they can use long-range weapon systems to hold accountable Russia’s valid military targets that are attacking Ukraine, we can change the dynamics on the ground. You can’t continue to just have a front line in Ukraine where Russia is out-producing weapon systems from what Ukraine has, and have this this turn out well for Ukraine.”
In addition to the Kursk invasion, Ukraine continues to attack energy infrastructure inside Russia.
A fire at Russia’s Proletarsk state fuel reserve facility in the Rostov region is still burning three days after a reported Ukrainian drone strike.
The facility is located more than 250 miles from the front lines.
“The fire in Proletarsk is still being extinguished, and the [number of] personnel and appliances involved has been increased,” Rostov Gov. Vasily Golubev said on Telegram Monday. “Given the complexity of the fire in the Proletarsky district, the high-alert mode has been upgraded to an emergency situation. The emergency rescue units are currently focusing all their efforts on containing the fire.”
Video has emerged on social media showing a detailed demonstration of Russian FPV drones with fiber optic control cables reportedly developed by the Chinese Skywalker Technology company.
In an effort to avoid Ukrainian jamming, Russia began using fiber optic cables to control its first-person view (FPV) drones in the Kursk region. Images of downed Russian kamikaze drones with those cables began to emerge in March. You can read much more about this technique in our deep dive here.
A U.S.-donated GBU-39 air-launched Small Diameter Bomb is seen in this image below being unboxed at an unspecified Ukrainian air base.
The president of Russia’s client state of Belarus on Monday again called for the war to end in a peculiar way.
“Ukraine has already passed the stage of ‘denazification,’ it is necessary to start negotiations and end the conflict,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said in an interview with the TV channel Russia 1. Ukraine’s move into Russia has likely rattled the Lukashenko. Russia launched part of its invasion from Belarus and has fired standoff weapons from there.
Though the bulk of the fighting inside Ukraine is taking place in the Donbas, there is still a battle going on along the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.
A Ukrainian Armed Forces base on the side of the river under its control was recently hit by one of Russia’s modern Kh-38M air-to-ground missiles.
A Ukrainian uncrewed jet ski was recently destroyed by Russian small arms fire in Crimea, which you can see in the video below.
Naval expert H I Sutton, who uses the @covertshores Twitter handle, said this is a second-generation Ukrainian jet ski USV.
A highly modified jet ski loaded with explosives was recently found off the Turkish coast near Istanbul. The uncrewed vehicle is likely part of a growing armada of Ukrainian kamikaze drone boats that have been notably effective in disrupting Russian Navy activities in the Black Sea and have sunk or damaged multiple warships. However, this is the first time one has been spotted in Crimea.
With the war grinding on and his country under invasion, Putin is opening the aperture for those who can gain Russian citizenship. They don’t have to know how to speak or read Russian, just “share traditional Russian spiritual and moral values.”
That’s it for now.
Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com