Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that the daring military invasion of the Russian Kursk region was intended to create a buffer zone to prevent further attacks from Moscow across the border.
It was the first time that Zelensky clearly stated the goal of the operation, which began on August 6. He had previously stated that the aim of the operation was to protect communities in the neighboring Sumy region from constant shelling.
“Our main task in all defensive operations now is to destroy as much of Russia’s war potential as possible and to carry out as many counteroffensives as possible,” Zelensky said in his evening speech. “This includes the creation of a buffer zone on the territory of the aggressor – our operation in the Kursk region.”
According to officials, Ukraine destroyed a key bridge in the region and attacked a second one nearby during its invasion over the weekend, cutting off supply lines.
Pro-Kremlin military bloggers acknowledged that the destruction of the first bridge over the Seim River near the town of Glushkovo will hamper supplies to Russian forces repelling the Ukrainian incursion, although Moscow can still deploy pontoons and smaller bridges. Ukrainian Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk posted a video on Friday of an airstrike that cut the bridge in half.
Less than two days later, Ukrainian troops stormed a second bridge in Russia, according to Oleshchuk and Russian regional governor Alexei Smirnov.
As of Sunday morning, there was no official information on the exact location of the second bridge attack. However, Russian Telegram channels claimed that a second bridge over the Seim River in the village of Zvannoe had been hit.
According to Russian news site Mash, only one bridge in the area remained intact after the attacks. The Associated Press could not immediately confirm these claims. If confirmed, the Ukrainian attacks would further complicate Moscow’s efforts to replenish its troops and evacuate civilians.
Glushkovo is located about 12 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border and about 16 kilometers northwest of the main battle area in Kursk. Zvannoe is another 8 kilometers northwest.
Kyiv has so far said little about the targets of its advance of tanks and other armored vehicles into Russia, the largest attack on the country since World War II, which took the Kremlin by surprise and resulted in dozens of villages and hundreds of prisoners falling into Ukrainian hands.
Ukrainians have pushed deep into the region in several directions, encountering little resistance and spreading chaos and panic as tens of thousands of civilians have fled. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed last week that his troops had advanced across 1,000 square kilometers of the region, although it has not been possible to independently verify what Ukrainian forces actually control.
In his comments on the creation of a buffer zone, Zelensky said the Ukrainian armed forces had “achieved good and much-needed results”.
Analysts believe that Ukraine could try to consolidate its power positions in Russia, but given Kyiv’s limited resources, this would be risky as its own supply lines extending far into Kursk would be at risk.
The incursion demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to seize the initiative and boosted its morale, which had been weakened by a failed counteroffensive last summer and months of arduous Russian gains in the eastern Donbass region.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, said during a visit to China in May that Moscow’s offensive that month in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv was aimed at creating a buffer zone there.
This offensive opened a new front and led to the displacement of thousands of Ukrainians. The attacks were a response to Ukrainian shelling of the Russian region of Belgorod, Putin said.
“I have stated publicly that if things continue like this, we will be forced to create a security zone, a sanitary zone,” he said. “That’s what we are doing.”
Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk was similar to its September 2022 lightning operation led by Syrskyi, in which its forces regained control of the northeastern Kharkiv region after taking advantage of a shortage of Russian manpower and the absence of field fortifications.
On Saturday, Zelensky called on Kyiv’s allies to lift remaining restrictions on the use of Western weapons to attack low-lying targets in Russia, including Kursk, saying his troops could deprive Moscow of “any opportunity to advance and cause destruction” if they were granted sufficient long-range capabilities.
“It is crucial that our partners remove barriers that prevent us from weakening Russian positions in the way this war requires. … The courage of our soldiers and the resilience of our combat brigades compensate for the lack of essential decisions by our partners,” Zelensky said on the social platform X.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and pro-Kremlin bloggers claimed that American HIMARS missile launchers were used to destroy bridges on the Seim River. These claims could not be independently verified.
The Ukrainian leadership has repeatedly requested authorization for long-range strikes on Russian air bases and other infrastructure to bomb Ukrainian energy facilities and other civilian targets. In recent months, attacks on industrial eastern Ukraine have included the use of modified Soviet-era “glide bombs.”
Moscow also appears to have stepped up its attacks on Kyiv. On Sunday, the city was attacked with ballistic missiles for the third time this month, according to the head of the city’s military administration. Serhii Popko said in a Telegram post that North Korean KN-23 missiles were “most likely” used in the “almost identical” attacks on the capital in August.
At around 7 a.m., another attempted attack on Kiev followed, this time with Iskander cruise missiles, Popko said. Ukrainian air defenses shot down all missiles in both attacks on the city, he said.
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that the security situation at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was deteriorating.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, called for “maximum restraint on all sides” after an IAEA team on site reported that a drone-borne explosive device had detonated just outside the protected area of the facility.
According to Grossi, the impact occurred “near the main water sprinkler basins” and about 100 meters from the only power line that supplies the plant. The IAEA team at the plant reported intense military activity in the area last week, it said.
Kyiv and Moscow have blamed each other for attacks near the plant since it was captured by Russian forces early in the 2022 invasion, including a fire at the facility last weekend. Grossi said the fire caused “significant damage” but did not pose an immediate threat to nuclear safety.
According to authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian ally Belarus has amassed “almost a third” of its army along the border with Ukraine.
Lukashenko said on Russian state television that Minsk was a reaction to the stationing of more than 120,000 Ukrainian soldiers on the 1,084-kilometer-long border. Belarus’ professional army has over 60,000 men.
Ukrainian border guard spokesman Andrii Demchenko said on Sunday that no signs of troop deployment from Belarus had been observed.
Lukashenko, who has been in power for three decades, has relied on Russian support to crush the largest protests in Belarus’ post-Soviet history after his re-election in 2020. The elections were widely viewed as a farce at home and abroad. Lukashenko allowed Russian troops to use Belarus’ territory to invade Ukraine and allowed Moscow to deploy some tactical nuclear weapons on Belarus’ territory.
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