Ukraine’s offensive into the Russian border region of Kursk diverted about 40,000 Russian troops away from the frontline, Zelenskyy said on Thursday. Kyiv launched its Kursk offensive on 6 August in a bid to pull Moscow’s forces away from eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army has captured a string of villages in recent months.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had captured the village of Heorhiivka, east of the city of Kurakhove, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in an afternoon report, referred to the village as one of several engulfed by fighting. Popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState said the village was in Russian hands. In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s forces had “managed to diminish the occupiers’ assault potential in Donetsk region,” though the situation remained difficult in areas subjected to the heaviest attacks, near Kurakhove and another key Russian target, the city of Pokrovsk.
Russian forces hit a geriatric care home in the Ukrainian city of Sumy and targeted its energy sector in a new wave of airstrikes on Thursday, killing at least one civilian, Ukrainian officials said. During a daytime strike on the northern city, a Russian guided bomb hit a five-storey building, regional and military officials said. One person was killed and 12 wounded, the interior ministry said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said rescue teams were checking to see whether people were trapped under rubble. Images from the site shared alongside the ministry’s post showed elderly patients evacuated from the damaged building lying on the ground on carpets and blankets.
