KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) – Ukrainian forces have destroyed or damaged all three bridges over the Sim River in western Russia, Russian sources said, as Kiev’s push into western Russia entered its third week on Tuesday.
Kyiv’s push into Russia’s Kursk region is changing the course of the war and boosting morale among Ukraine’s war-weary population, though the ultimate outcome of the incursion – the first offensive into Russia since World War II – remains impossible to predict.
As Ukraine hails its success on Russian territory, the Russian campaign in eastern Ukraine is poised to capture another major center, the city of Pokrovsk.
The Ukrainian attacks on the three bridges over the Seim River in Kursk could trap Russian forces between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border. These attacks already appear to be slowing Russia’s response to the Kursk incursion, which Ukraine launched on August 6.
Over the weekend, the commander of the Ukrainian air force released two videos showing the bombing of bridges over the Seim River, and satellite images taken by Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday confirmed that a bridge in the town of Glushkovo had been destroyed.
A Russian military investigator confirmed Monday that Ukraine had “completely destroyed” one bridge and damaged two others in the area. The full extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
“As a result of targeted shelling with rocket and artillery fire on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the village of Kareg… a third bridge over the Seim River was damaged,” the unnamed representative of the Russian Investigative Committee said in a video posted on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov.
Russian military bloggers Vladimir Romanov and Yuri Podolyaka and several pro-war Telegram channels in Russia also claimed that the Third Bridge was targeted and damaged. Podolyaka’s post was shared by Roman Alekhin, an adviser to the acting governor of the Kursk region.
Ukraine’s top military commander said Tuesday that the Ukrainian army has captured 1,263 square kilometers (488 square miles) and 93 settlements since the start of the incursion into the Kursk region — up from 1,000 square kilometers (386 square miles) a week ago. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi made the comments while meeting with local officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address after meeting with Syrskyi later on Tuesday that the Ukrainian military had achieved its “set goals” in Kursk.
Zelensky has said in recent days that the operation is aimed at creating a buffer zone that could prevent future attacks on his country from across the border, and that Ukraine is holding a large number of Russian prisoners of war and hopes to exchange them for captured Ukrainians.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that 17 people were killed and 140 wounded in the Ukrainian forces’ advance, citing an unnamed source in the Russian medical service. Four of the 75 people taken to hospital were children.
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry said Tuesday afternoon that more than 500 people had left dangerous areas in the Kursk region in the past 24 hours, adding that more than 122,000 people had returned home since the start of the Ukrainian offensive.
In another example of Ukraine taking the war to Russian territory, a massive fire broke out for the third day in a row after Ukrainian drones bombed an oil depot.
The fire, which broke out at a warehouse in the town of Proletarsk, has burned through 2.5 hectares, Russian state news agencies reported. The TASS news agency, citing local officials, said 500 firefighters were involved in the operation, with 41 of them already hospitalized with injuries.
The Ukrainian General Staff on Sunday claimed responsibility for the attack on the oil depot, which was used to supply the Russian military, describing it as an action “aimed at undermining the military and economic potential of the Russian Federation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukrainians of “trying to destabilize our country” and compared them to terrorists.
“We will punish the criminals. There is no doubt about that,” Putin said on Tuesday, as he met mothers of children killed in the 2004 Beslan school attack by Islamist militants that killed more than 330 people.
The Ukrainian incursion has exposed Russian vulnerabilities, according to Ukrainian analysts and officials.
Zelensky said Monday he believed Ukraine’s actions would help allay Western concerns about more robust military aid to Kyiv. Some allies have been slow to deliver weapons and have imposed restrictions on how they can be used, fearing that crossing a Russian “red line” could lead to escalation, even nuclear escalation.
“We have now achieved a very important ideological shift: the naive and illusory concept of so-called “red lines” in relation to Russia that dominated the war assessments of some of our partners has collapsed these days somewhere near Sudja,” the president said, referring to Russian city under Ukrainian control.
Much remains unknown about Ukrainian operations in Russia, but satellite imagery offers some clues.
Floating bridges — temporary bridges used by armies when official ones are destroyed — have been seen in satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC at two different locations along the Sim River in recent days. The pontoons are likely built by Russian soldiers trying to supply troops around the Ukrainian advance.
A floating bridge was visible along the winding course of the river between Glushkovo and the village of Zvannoye on Saturday, but was not visible in images taken on Monday. On Monday, smoke could be seen rising along the banks of the nearby river – usually a sign of a strike.
Meanwhile, along the front line in eastern Ukraine, Russia has continued to press the city of Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region, forcing Kyiv’s forces to withdraw and Ukrainian civilians to flee. Fleeing their homes. Capturing it would jeopardize Ukraine’s defensive capabilities and supply routes, and would bring Russia closer to its stated goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
The six-month-old Russian campaign in the region after the capture of AvdiivkaThis cost both sides heavy losses in troops and armor.
Russia wants to control all parts of Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk, which together form the industrial Donbas region.
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Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell contributed to this story.
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Follow the developments of the war on https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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