August 24, 2024
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Ukrainian military says it used high-precision U. S. bombs to attack Russia’s Kursk region, recapturing some territory in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region that was under attack. a Russian offensive since the spring.
The commander of the Ukraine Air Force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk, released a video Thursday night purporting to show a Russian platoon base attacked in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces introduced a wonderful cross-border raid on Aug. 6. He said the GBU-39 bomb attack led across the United States to Russian casualties and destruction of equipment.
The video showed explosions and columns of smoke emerging at the scene.
Many of Ukraine’s supporters oppose the country’s donating weapons for purposes other than defense. However, Ukraine has argued that its incursion into Kursk was necessarily defensive and aimed to minimize attacks on Ukrainian soil from that Russian region.
U. S. officials have said Washington supports Ukraine’s use of short-range weapons, such as bombs, in its cross-border attacks. So far, the United States has only limited the use of longer-range ATACMS missiles for deep movements in Russia.
U. S. President Joe Biden said on the eve of Ukraine’s Independence Day that he spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday to “express United States’ unwavering assistance to the Ukrainian people. “Biden also announced a new military aid package for Ukraine, adding air defense missiles, anti-drone equipment, anti-armor missiles and cellular rocket systems.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Friday that U. S. officials were in near-daily contact with their Ukrainian counterparts and had made no recent adjustments to rules on how U. S. weapons can be used in the Kursk offensive.
“They are allowed to use devices through the United States to protect themselves against Russian aggression. And, as you know, the president has allowed them to use U. S. munitions across that border to deal with imminent threats,” Kirthrough told reporters in Washington.
Kirby added that it is unclear how fortunate the Ukrainian operation in Kursk will be in the long term. On Friday, Russian officials reported some good luck pushing back Ukrainian forces in some areas of the Kursk region.
Separately, Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade said its forces had pushed about two square kilometers (about three-quarters of a square mile) into the Kharkiv region. No details have been revealed about the timing, scale or dominance of the offensive, and it is difficult to expect its impact on the battlefield.
Ukrainian forces gained new momentum this month after backlogged U. S. arms shipments were released and Kyiv launched a surprise offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region earlier this month.
At the same time, Ukraine has escalated its drone war against military and oil targets, leading to deep fires in Russia this week. New major points emerged Friday about the damage and injuries caused by some of those drone strikes.
A Ukrainian drone strike targeting a remote Russian air base in the Volgograd region has caused significant damage to an airfield believed to have housed glider bombs used in Moscow during the war, satellite imagery analyzed by The Associated Press showed Friday.
Meanwhile, an attack on a cargo ferry in the port of Kavkaz in Russia’s Krasnodar region injured thirteen other people on Thursday, the official Russian news firm Tass reported on Friday. Tass, citing fitness officials, said four of the injured were hospitalized and the user remains missing.
Ukraine’s progress has reshaped the battlefield and boosted Ukrainian morale, 10 years after Russia’s first invasion of their country and two years after Moscow introduced a full-scale invasion that caused mass death and destruction and created the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Ukraine and its Western allies hope that this new momentum can improve Kiev’s position on the diplomatic front.
The stopover in kyiv via Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday, is heavily monitored. Ukrainians hope that Modi, who maintains cordial and economic relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, can play a role in building a negotiated peace. .
The incursion into Russia exposed Russian vulnerabilities but also tested Ukrainian forces, who were already fighting on a front line that stretched for many kilometers (miles). This could have compromised Ukraine’s ability to contain Russian forces that have slowly gained ground in the Donetsk region, distracting Ukrainian forces that might otherwise defend themselves there.
It is still unclear how long Ukraine will be able to hold onto the land it has seized from Russia.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Friday that its troops had repelled Ukrainian attempts to advance toward the villages of Borki and Malaya Loknya in the Kursk region. The ministry also said it had eliminated a reconnaissance and sabotage organization near Kamyshevka, 20 kilometers north of Sudzha, which the Ukrainians had taken.
Ukraine’s 3rd Separate Assault Brigade said last Thursday that Ukrainian infantrymen had taken control of a domain controlled by a Russian battalion, as well as some fortresses.
Brigadier Commander Andrii Biletskyi said they attacked Russian troops who had superiority “and won,” adding that the ratio of forces on the battlefield is 2. 5:1 in favor of Moscow.
The Associated Press could not independently determine those claims and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
Russia introduced an offensive in the Kharkiv region in May that made some gains, but was temporarily stalled. Fighting in that domain has dwindled as the Russian military has concentrated its efforts on Donetsk, a component of the Donbass trade region that Moscow has officially annexed but fully controls.
The Russian advance in spring on Kharkiv was seen as a sign that Ukraine’s position was weakening in the face of delays in aid from the Western military.
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