Russian troops descend on Kursk with ‘greater force’

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Russian troops have been sent to Kursk with “greater force” after initial “disarray and disorganisation” in the immediate aftermath of Kyiv’s incursion, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Friday. 
Moscow’s troops were “not prepared” for the incursion but ten days on, more defensive lines have been organised along the Russian border region. 
The MoD added that Ukrainian forces have penetrated the Russian border region “to a depth ranging between 10-25km over a frontage of approximately 40km”. 
It emerged on Friday that Moscow had begun the transfer of “several thousand” troops from Ukraine to defend its own territory in Kursk.
But this does not appear to have impacted Russia’s advances in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow’s troops are advancing “at pace”.
Russia has already claimed control of Sergiivka, a village located around nine miles away from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
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After years of an utterly meaningless and unjustified war in Ukraine, massive destruction and immense suffering, and a slow and grinding Russian advance on the battlefield, some find it difficult to see an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, writes Hans Petter Midttun.
I believe, however, that the tide is already turning, to Kyiv’s advantage.
In a week, Ukraine has achieved what Russia managed in six months, demonstrating the difference between quality and quantity. The Kursk incursion will help change the course of the war. 
Read the full story here.
Western nations and Nato helped Ukraine launch its incursion into Kursk, a key aide to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has claimed.
Nikolai Patrushev said on Friday that the Ukrainian operation was “planned with the participation of Nato and Western special services”.
Mr Patrushev’s claims, for which he offered no evidence, came despite Washington’s insistence that the West had no involvement in the incursion.
However, weaponry provided by Washington and London, including British Challenger 2 tanks and US-made rocket launchers, are understood to have been used by Ukrainians on Russian soil.
Seven people were injured in a series of Ukrainian strikes on a shopping centre in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Friday, a Russian official said on Friday.
“Since 12 noon today, the enemy has been carrying out targeted massive strikes on the Petrovsky district of the regional capital,” Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed governor, posted on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces have released footage which appears to show Russian soldiers surrendering in Kursk on the first day of Kyiv’s incursion.
In the video, soldiers can be seen climbing through rubble, waving white flags and holding their hands up in the air.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, on Friday discussed “new technical solutions” to the war in Ukraine in a meeting with members of Russia’s Security Council.
Andrei Belousov, Russia’s Defence Minister, also attended the briefing.
No other details can be reported from the meeting, which was closed off from the press.
This is the moment Ukrainian troops were given a homily by an army chaplain as they celebrate the feast of the Assumption in a forest in the Donetsk region. 
Russian troops are being sent to Kursk in “greater force” after initial “disarray and disorganisation”, the UK Ministry of Defence said on Friday.
Russia’s defensive lines were “not prepared” for the incursion but ten days on, more defensive positions have been taken by Moscow’s troops.
The MoD added that Ukrainian forces have penetrated the Russian border region “to a depth ranging between 10-25km over a frontage of approximately 40km”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 16 August 2024.Find out more about Defence Intelligence’s use of language: https://t.co/JgR5kqH67L #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/NXSNDd7ZI7
Russia has claimed its forces downed 12 ballistic missiles which it says were launched in a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge overnight.
“All missiles were destroyed,”  Russian state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti reported on Friday. 
The Crimean Bridge was constructed on Putin’s orders after the annexation of Crimea. It connects the peninsula with the Russian city of Kerch.
It followed claims from Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast Military Administration that its forces successfully hit a ferry crossing in Kerch. 
Russia has moved “several thousand” troops from occupied Ukraine to defend its own territory in Kursk, according to US officials.
US officials have been trying to determine exactly how many troops have been moved but sources told CNN at least 1,000 have been diverted to the border region, where the Ukrainians launched their cross-border assault last week.
“It is apparent to us that Mr Putin and the Russian military are diverting some resources, some units, towards the Kursk Oblast to ostensibly counter what the Ukrainians are doing,” John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said on Thursday.
The move does not mean Russia has given up active military operations in the northeast of Ukraine, Mr Kirby said, before adding: “There’s still active fighting along that front.”
Kyiv has claimed that its cross-border assault, which is entering its eleventh day, has allowed its troops to take 1,150 sq km of Russian territory across more than 80 settlements. 
This has forced the evacuation of around 200,000 Russians from their homes, the largest of its kind since the Second Chechen War.
Ukrainian officials have sought to speed up the evacuation of residents in Pokrovsk as Russian forces advance on the city “at a fast pace”. 
Authorities said in a Telegram post that “with every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions”. 
Russia claimed on Friday that its forces have taken control of Sergiivka, a village located around nine miles away from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
A statement from the Russian defence ministry said its troops had “liberated the village of Sergeevka” in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. 
It follows warnings from Ukraine and military analysts that Moscow’s offensive in the east of Ukraine has shown little sign of slowing down in the wake of Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk. 
Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk could force Moscow into peace negotiations, a key Ukrainian advisor has said. 
Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to President Zelensky, said on Friday that the public mood among Russians is changing due to fighting crossing into their country. 
“In the Kursk region, we can clearly see how the military tool is being used objectively to persuade Rf to enter a fair negotiation process,” Mr Podolyak said. 
Russia has claimed this is the moment its forces destroyed a US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine.
Footage shows HIMARS missiles being launched from the side of the road in the border region, before the system is moved into the woods to reload. 
Iskander ballistic missiles were then fired by Russian forces, destroying the launcher, Moscow claimed. 
Earlier we reported that air raid sirens had been issued across more than half of Ukraine, including in Kyiv. 
The majority of these alerts have ended, including in Kyiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv. However, alerts remain in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Donetsk. 
There is a high probability of armed conflict with Ukraine, Viktor Khrenin, the Belarusian defence minister, warned on Friday. 
Mr Khrenin claimed that Ukraine could provoke Belarus, dragging it into a wider conflict, the state-run Belta news agency reported.
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian President and key ally of Vladimir Putin, also warned on Thursday that Ukraine could attack Belarus. 
Joe Biden, the US president, has met with a British-Russian citizen who was released as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia earlier this month.
Vladimir Kara-Murza was jailed for 25 years on charges of treason more than two years ago, but was released along with 23 other prisoners at the start of August.
Posting a picture with Mr Kara-Murza and his family, Mr Biden said: “Today his family is whole once more.”
When Ukrainian brigades rolled into Russia’s Kursk Oblast in a surprise move on Aug 6, they were supported from above by a powerful force of small drones, writes David Axe. 
The presence of attack and surveillance drones over the front line of the Kursk operation wasn’t unusual: drones are everywhere all the time along the line of contact in Russia’s 29-month wider war on Ukraine.
What was unusual was the drones’ set of targets. Before last week, Ukrainian drones strictly targeted Russian troops and vehicles on the ground.
But then, on or around Aug 7, a Ukrainian first-person-view (FPV) drone clutching an explosive payload struck a Russian air force Mil Mi-28 attack helicopter in mid-flight somewhere over Kursk, apparently downing the ’copter and killing its two crew.
Read the full story here. 
Vladimir Putin is leading a largely “ineffective and complicated” response to Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk, military analysts have said. 
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, reported that Mr Putin has provided “overlapping” tasks to Russia’s Ministry of Defence, state security service, and the national guard. 
As a result, there has been little division of responsibilities, leading to a “complicated, overlapping, and so far, ineffective command and control structure” for the response to the Kursk incursion. 
The Kremlin and the Russian military command are creating a complicated, overlapping, and so far, ineffective command and control (C2) structure for the Russian response to the Ukrainian incursion in Kursk Oblast. https://t.co/gROEW9da47 pic.twitter.com/Q8lE6C9f7F
Air raid alerts have been issued across more than half of Ukraine in the last few minutes. 
The alerts, which warn of potential attacks, have been activated across several regions, including Donetsk, Lukahnsk, Kharkiv, as well as the capital city, Kyiv. 
A 12-year jail sentence for a US-Russian ballerina who donated £40 to Ukraine is ‘vindictive cruelty’, the Biden administration has said. 
Ksenia Karelina, 33, was sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty in a trial behind closed doors. 
John Kirby, the White House’s national security communications advisor, said: “The way we would describe this sentence of 12 years is vindictive cruelty. 
“I mean, we’ve spoken out about her case before, when she was charged and arrested. The sentence just proves all the more that there’s no real system of justice coming out of Moscow.”
Ukraine shot down all five Russia-launched drones during an overnight attack, the country’s air force said on Friday. 
Russian forces also used three ballistic Iskander-M missiles during the attack, according to the air force’s statement on the Telegram messaging app.
Russia used three Shahed-type drones and two drones of an unidentified type for the attack, it said.
Ukrainian forces reportedly struck a ferry crossing in Crimea overnight.
Preliminary reports suggest the ferry crossing was hit in the city of Kerch, while a boat near the community of Chernomorsk was also struck.
In a statement posted on Friday morning, Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed to have “intercepted and destroyed five aircraft-type UAVs over the Black Sea” and two boats “heading towards” Crimea.
The Telegraph has been unable to independently verify these claims.
Despite Vladimir Putin’s vows to “drive out the enemy,” he has failed to expel or even halt the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Russia, writes Hamish de Bretton-Gordon.
This is the first time the Motherland has been invaded since the Second World War. Kyiv’s forces now claim to have seized control of 74 settlements and more than 1,000 square km of Russian territory, prompting the evacuation of 200,000 people.
This is a full-blown crisis for the Kremlin. Despite this, after 10 days of enemy troops on Russian soil, there has been no nuclear sabre-rattling from Moscow.
Bold military action by Ukraine has, at a stroke, exposed as a bluff Moscow’s key strategy for keeping the West backed off: the fear of nuclear escalation.
Read the full story here.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk could trigger World War Three, a Russian parliamentary deputy said on Friday.
“Considering the presence of Western military equipment, the use of Western ammunition and missiles in attacks on civilian infrastructure and irrefutable proof of foreigners’ participation in the attack on Russian territory, one could come to the conclusion that the world is on the brink of a third world war,” RIA quoted deputy Mikhail Sheremet as saying.
Putin’s aide, Nikolai Patrushev, has also accused the West of being behind the incursion, in an interview with Izvestia newspaper.
A key Kremlin ally has called for an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine following Kyiv’s assault on Kursk.
Aleksandr Lukashenko, the Belarusian president and a key Russia ally, will broadcast his plea in full to national state media on Sunday.
“Let’s sit down at the negotiating table and end this scuffle,” Mr Lukashenko said. 
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