Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had likely used US-made HIMARS to destroy a bridge over the Seim rive
Ukraine’s lightning offensive into several Russian border regions is designed to persuade Moscow to engage in “fair” talks about its war in Ukraine, an aide to Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said, as Russian forces close in on the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.
“We need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “In the Kursk region, we clearly see how the military tool is objectively used to convince the Russian Federation to enter into a fair negotiation process.
“We have proven, effective means of coercion. In addition to economic and diplomatic ones … we need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia.”
Podolyak made his comments as it appeared that Ukraine had largely cut off a significant area of Glushovsky district of Kursk.
Ukraine’s air defences shot down all 14 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday.
The air force said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app that the Shahed drones were downed over six Ukrainian regions in the south and centre of the country.
Here are some of the latest changes to the frontline in Russia and Ukraine:Is Ukraine using western missiles inside Russia?
Russia has accused Nato and the west more widely of aiding the Ukrainian incursion, including by permitting the use of western-supplied equipment. But British officials said Ukraine was entitled under international law to use British-donated equipment in operations, including within Russia.
“There has been no change in UK government policy; under article 51 of the UN charter, Ukraine has a clear right of self-defence against Russia’s illegal attacks, [and] that does not preclude operations inside Russia,” the Ministry of Defence said.
It appears, however, there has been no change in the UK’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets inside Russia, suggesting a delicate balancing act.
The US so far has also deemed the incursion a protective move in which it is appropriate for Kyiv to use US equipment, officials in Washington said. But they expressed worries about complications as Ukrainian troops pushed further into enemy territory.
One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that if Ukraine started taking Russian villages and other non-military targets using US weapons and vehicles, it could be seen as stretching the limits Washington has imposed, precisely to avoid any perception of a direct Nato-Russia conflict.
Ukraine has said that one of the aims of its current incursion into Russia is to counter artillery and missile fire into Ukraine and create a buffer zone.Ukrainian forces ‘leaving trail of destruction’ in Kursk
Reporters from the Associated Press say that, on a trip through Kursk organised by the Ukrainian government, they witnessed a “trail of destruction”.
They report:
A trail of destruction lies in the path that Ukrainian forces carved on their risky incursion into Russia, blasting through the border and eventually into the town of Sudzha.
Artillery fire has blown chunks out of a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that stands in a central square of the Russian town, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday was fully under his troops’ control. The windows of an administrative building are blasted out, and its bright yellow facade is scorched and pockmarked with bullet holes.
