Ukrainian Armed Forces offensive on Kursk: Ukrainian military builds fortifications; Russian propagandists call it 'the worst thing that could happen'

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Ukraine launched an invasion of Russian territory to “restore justice” and put pressure on Moscow. On August 10, in his video message, he first raised the topic of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ offensive in the west of the Kursk region, he writes Reuters. Meanwhile the publication Forbes reports that Ukrainian troops are building fortifications in the Kursk region, which makes it clear that they are here for the long haul.

Photo: IStock

Monday, August 12, was the seventh day of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ operation on Russian territory. As a result, the southwestern regions of the Russian Federation were vulnerable until reinforcements arrived.

The Ukrainian offensive on the Kursk region began on the morning of August 6. Russian authorities rushed to evacuate residents and declared a state of emergency in three border regions. Belarus, a staunch ally of Moscow, also sent additional troops to its border with Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of violating its airspace.

In his August 10 video message, Zelensky said he discussed the operation with commander-in-chief Alexander Syrsky.

“Today I received several reports from Commander-in-Chief Syrsky regarding the front line and our actions to transfer the war to the territory of the aggressor,” he said. “Ukraine is proving that it can truly restore justice and is providing exactly the pressure that is needed—pressure on the aggressor.”

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on August 11 that it destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones and four Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles overnight over the Kursk region and 18 drones over other Russian regions.

The Foreign Office in a statement called the ground invasion "barbaric" and said it made no military sense.

On the subject: Boris Johnson is confident that Trump will quickly end the war in Ukraine and has offered him a plan of action

Ukraine has occupied at most a few tens of square kilometers of Russian territory without claiming rights to it, while Russia controls more than 100 square kilometers of internationally recognized territory of Ukraine.

On August 7, the second day of the Ukrainian offensive, Russian General Valery Gerasimov said that the attacks had been stopped but that Russia had not pushed Ukrainian troops outside its territory. Later, Putin removed Gerasimov from command of the operation in the Kursk region and appointed FSB head Alexander Bortnikov in his place.

Russian military bloggers said the situation had stabilized, although they acknowledged that Ukraine was rapidly building up its forces.

On August 11, Vladimir Zelensky said that Russia had already carried out almost 2000 strikes on the Sumy region of Ukraine from the Kursk region this summer. Russia's barbaric terrorist actions have long deserved a Ukrainian response.

“Artillery, mortars, drones. We record missile strikes, and every such strike deserves a fair response,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Earlier, representatives of Kursk reported that 13 people were injured in the city after debris from a destroyed Ukrainian missile fell on a nine-story residential building.

A photo published by the mayor of Kursk shows flames rising from a destroyed residential building surrounded by charred rubble.

Moscow and Kyiv rarely reveal the full extent of the damage their attacks cause unless there are injuries or damage to residential buildings.

Alexey Smirnov, the acting governor of Kursk, ordered local authorities to speed up the evacuation of civilians from dangerous areas. On August 10, the Russian state news agency TASS reported that more than 76 people had been evacuated.

Kyiv and Moscow deny targeting civilians in their attacks. But during the war, thousands of people died at the hands of Russian aggressors and millions of Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes.

Russian military bloggers say that in the Kursk region, fighting is taking place at a depth of up to 20 km from the Ukrainian border. Some of them wonder why Ukraine was able to penetrate across the border into Russian territory so easily.

Several dozen Russian soldiers, including militants from Chechnya, allegedly captured in Kursk, were shown in a video published by the “I Want to Live” project, which is linked to Ukrainian intelligence.

After a father and his 4-year-old son were killed near Kyiv in a Russian airstrike by a North Korean missile, the Ukrainian president asked Western partners to make “strong decisions” to allow his troops to strike deep into Russia using Western weapons.

“When Ukraine’s long-range capabilities have no limit, this war will definitely have a limit,” Zelensky wrote in X.

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said that she sent an appeal to the UN demanding that Ukraine condemn the actions of Ukraine in the Kursk region. In a Telegram post, she said she was asking the UN Commissioner for Human Rights to “take action to prevent gross, mass violations of human rights.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops in the Kursk region began digging trenches, indicating their plans to gain a permanent foothold there. The Russians, anticipating a long confrontation, also began to dig in.

Russian military correspondent Alexander Kharchenko said that on Sunday, August 11, he observed the work of bulldozers, with the help of which Ukrainian troops are digging fortifications. This, he said, is “the worst thing that can happen.”

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According to Forbes, the “window of opportunity” for a Russian counterattack is quickly closing as the Ukrainians rapidly build defensive structures, and Russian reinforcements are met by Ukrainian drones, artillery and sabotage and reconnaissance groups. In addition, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have already stationed about 10 thousand military personnel in the Sumy region, bordering Kursk. The publication suggests that the operation in the Kursk region set itself the goal of pulling Russian forces from the eastern regions of Ukraine.

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