In the border town of Kursk in southwestern Russia, Ukrainian military operations have been ongoing for ten days. Both sides engaged in fierce fighting on the 15th of local time. The Russian military claimed to have partially regained a village that had been briefly taken away, but Ukraine reported that they continued to advance into Russian territory, even setting up a military command post in the occupied area. According to TASS and Reuters, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that their forces had retaken the village of Krupets, which was temporarily occupied by the Ukrainian military.
To confront the Ukrainian forces, the Russian Chechen Republic’s Ahmat special forces, led by Commander Afati Alaudinov, stated, “We have recaptured the village of Martynovka, located about 18 km from the border.” They also mentioned that the area of Suzha, where Ukrainian forces had advanced on the 6th, remained not fully under Ukrainian control. Suzha is the location of the last measuring station of the natural gas pipeline to Europe from Russia.
The Ukrainian military has different claims from Russia. Ukrainian Chief of Staff Oleksandr Sirskyi reported to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the situation in Kursk, stating through Telegram that they had opened a military command post to maintain order and address the demands of the residents. He added that in the past day, they advanced up to 1.5 km at various points on the Kursk front, occupying 82 villages and 1150 km² of territory since the start of the Kursk offensive, totaling 35 km across enemy territory.
Zelenskyy countered the Russian announcement, stating in a video that they completely controlled the Suzha area. Amidst intense fighting in Suzha, a evacuation order was issued for the Russian town of Glushkovo, about 45 km northwest of Suzha, according to AP. In response to the Ukrainian offensive in Kursk, Russia declared a federal state of emergency in the neighboring Belgorod region, where drone attacks have followed.
The Ukrainian military expects that Russia will find it difficult to concentrate its combat power on the eastern front of Ukraine due to the Kursk offensive. However, Russia claimed to continue its strong offensive on the eastern front. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that they had captured a village 16 km away from the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast, a crucial location with Ukrainian military logistics and rear support bases. They also claimed to have inflicted 470 casualties on the Ukrainian military and destroyed two American-made tanks and artillery pieces in the Donetsk region over the previous day.
[Photo credit: AFP=Yonhap News]
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