Summary
We are now closing the blog. Here is a summary of events so far.
Moscow has said US missiles were likely used to destroy a bridge in Kursk. Yesterday two key bridges were destroyed in the region on the Seym River.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces were “strengthening” their positions in Russia’s Kursk region where Kyiv has been mounting a major ground offensive.
Ukraine’s air defences shot down all 14 Russian drones fired in an overnight attack, the Ukrainian air force said on Saturday. In a statement, it said that the Shahed drones were downed over six Ukrainian regions in the south and centre of the country.
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia has derailed plans to hold indirect talks in Qatar on halting strikes on energy infrastructure, the Washington Post has reported, citing undisclosed official sources.
Russia has lost 598,180 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, according to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces. This number includes 1,230 casualties Russian forces suffered over the past day.
On Saturday, Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of planning to attack the Kursk nuclear power plant and blame such a “provocation” on Moscow, Interfax news agency reported. The ministry said Russia would respond harshly in the event of such an attack, which it said would contaminate a large surrounding area. Kyiv denied Russia’s claims, calling them “insane propaganda”.
The Russian management of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant said on Saturday a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive charge on a road outside the plant, endangering its staff who use the road, the TASS news agency reported.
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.
Reporters from the Associated Press said that, on a trip through Kursk organised by the Ukrainian government, they witnessed a “trail of destruction”.
Germany, the second largest contributor of aid to war-torn Ukraine, plans to halve its bilateral military aid to Kyiv in 2025, a parliamentary source told AFP on Saturday.
Russia is restricting access to information in a bid to limit criticism of its invasion of Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said. In a post on X, the MoD said Russian authorities are “deliberately slowing” traffic on WhatsApp and YouTube and that the latter could be “blocked altogether in autumn 2024”.
Ukraine’s extraordinary incursion into Kursk has changed the narrative of the war – but is a high-risk strategy
The immediate impact of Ukraine’s incursion into the Russian region of Kursk that began on 6 August has been a transformation in the morale of the Ukrainian public and even more so the narrative among Ukraine’s international partners.
The slow but inexorable loss of ground in Donbas that painted a grim picture of retreat has been replaced by images of a dynamic front. While deceptive, this new narrative is important in reminding Ukraine’s international partners that outcomes in war are not inevitable.
Politically, the purpose of the operation is to build leverage ahead of possible negotiations. If Donald Trump wins the US presidency in November, the threat of withdrawing military-technical assistance is likely to force Kyiv to negotiate. The Ukrainian government wants to make sure that if it has to enter that process, it has things that Russia wants to trade for concessions. The Ukrainian military, therefore, must take and hold a sizeable chunk of Russian land for the duration of potential negotiations.
Another important element of the offensive is that Ukraine succeeded in maintaining operational security before launching the assault. This has been a significant problem with past Ukrainian operations, and the competence in the preparation and planning demonstrates lessons being learned from last year’s offensive that will encourage partners about the prospects for future operations.
It helped that Russian military intelligence appears to have suffered once again from a chronic lack of curiosity or imagination as Ukrainian forces were withdrawn from the line in Donbas.
You can read the full piece here.
