Ukraine’s advance on Russia has left Vladimir Putin’s border defences in “disarray”, the Defence Ministry said yesterday.
A Defence Ministry analysis of the offensive inside Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions said Moscow’s defences were not prepared but warned that forces had been redeployed.
The intelligence update said that in the past three months Russia had suffered its worst casualties since the start of the war.
In a post on social media, the Defence Ministry said: “Poorly trained Russian soldiers are being used as cannon fodder in an attempt to overwhelm strong Ukrainian defences.”
Russia has accused NATO and the West of aiding the Ukraine incursion, even allowing the use of military equipment and weapons.
A Defense Ministry analysis of the offensive indicated that Moscow’s defenses were not prepared. Pictured: Ukrainian snipers and infantrymen of the 22nd Brigade intensify training near the northern border with Russia in Ukraine on August 10.
A Russian soldier fires a Rapira anti-tank gun in the border area of the Kursk region
British Challenger 2 tanks are believed to have been used, and UK government policy allows Ukraine to use British weapons on Russian soil, though not long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
In an article published in today’s Mail newspaper, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson says it is time to allow powerful missiles to be used inside Russia.
A senior official for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the assault on Kursk and Belgorod was aimed at forcing Putin to the negotiating table and not an attempt to occupy Russian territory.
Mykhailo Podolyak said: “It is necessary to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia. In the Kursk region we clearly see how military means are objectively used to convince the Russian Federation to start a fair negotiation process.”
Moscow said its forces were repelling the advances and said it had carried out a successful air strike against Ukrainian forces in Kursk.
This came as Russian troops approached the key town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, prompting kyiv to call on residents to leave.
Moscow said its forces were repelling the advances. Pictured: Vladimir Putin on August 15
Local volunteers walk past a building damaged by Ukrainian attacks in Kursk on August 16, 2024
Evacuees queue to fill out humanitarian aid forms at a distribution center in Kursk on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officers fighting in the Kursk offensive have implored Britain to give the green light to using Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.
The deployment of long-range British rockets would allow Kiev forces to cut off vital supply lines by attacking key infrastructure up to 150 miles across the Russian border, Dmytro Lantushenko, captain of a mortar brigade involved in the Kusk raid, said yesterday.
“Those who can control their supply flows can maximize the use of their forces… If we had Storm Shadows, we would be able to attack logistics centers and railroads and disrupt those lines,” he told the Times.
kyiv troops are said to have already used British-made weapons with great effectiveness in their incursion into Russia.
Several Challenger-2 tanks are believed to have crossed the border as part of the invasion force, although Russian military bloggers boasted yesterday that drones had successfully destroyed one of the British-made vehicles used in the offensive.
Lantushenko’s calls for Storm Shadow missiles came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said drones are simply not enough to destroy key Russian military infrastructure and cement its advantage at Kursk.
Storm Shadow missiles are seen attached to the hardpoints of a Eurofighter Typhoon
Ukraine has already used Storm Shadow missiles, with an accuracy of more than 150 miles, to hit targets in Russian-occupied territory with great effectiveness.
A massive explosion is shown at a Crimean port late last year in what is believed to have been an attack by Storm Shadow on a Russian Navy vessel.
“Our Ukrainian drones work exactly as they should, but unfortunately there are things that cannot be done with drones alone,” the Ukrainian president said in his Wednesday evening speech.
“We need other weapons, missiles… far-reaching decisions for Ukraine. It is something that needs to be done. The bolder the decisions of our partners, the less Putin can do about it.”
NATO’s newest member, Sweden, said yesterday morning that Ukraine has the right to defend itself both inside and outside its territory, and kyiv’s Western allies appear to support the Kursk incursion.
But approving the use of long-range missiles on Russian soil would mark a major shift from British, US and European governments which have so far provided weapons to kyiv on condition they are not used for offensive attacks in Russia.
A Ukrainian soldier travels along a dirt road in a Challenger-2 tank on August 3, 2023 in Ukraine.
Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on his way to Washington for Nato’s 75th anniversary summit in July that decisions on whether to use the UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were up to the Ukrainian military.
Vladimir Putin and senior Russian officials have repeatedly said they would consider any Western country a direct party to the conflict if its weapons were used to attack Russian territory, raising fears that such a move could trigger a Third World War.
However, Taras Kuzio, a professor of political science at the Mohyla Academy of Kyiv National University, said the Kursk assault had shown that fear of crossing Russian “red lines” that could lead to nuclear escalation “is a myth.”
Sir Keir Starmer told reporters on his way to Washington for Nato’s 75th anniversary summit in July that decisions on whether to use UK-supplied Storm Shadow long-range missiles were up to the Ukrainian military.
Many believed this indicated that kyiv had been granted permission to use the missiles to attack targets on Russian soil.
But Downing Street was later forced to clarify that while Ukraine had been allowed to use UK-supplied weapons in Russia, it had not been granted the right to deploy long-range missiles.
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