Russian sources: Ukraine has destroyed or damaged three bridges over Russia's Seym River

2024-08-20 21:04:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Russian sources: Ukraine has destroyed or damaged three bridges over

Ukrainian forces have destroyed or damaged three bridges over the Seym River in western Russia, sources in Moscow said, as Tuesday marked the third week of Ukrainian military action on Russian territory.

Kiev's offensive in Russia's Kursk region is turning the tide of the war and boosting morale among Ukrainian people tired of Russian aggression. However, it is impossible to predict the final outcome of the first attack against Russia since World War II.

Despite the success of Kiev's penetration into Russian territory, Moscow's troops are close to taking control of the important city of Pokrovost in the eastern part of Ukraine.

Ukraine's attacks on three bridges over the Seym River in Kursk could block Russian troops from crossing the river and into Ukrainian territory. The situation may also affect the progress of Ukrainian troops. The attack has had the effect of slowing down the Russian response to the Ukrainian action in Kursk that began on August 6.

The commander of the Air Force of Ukraine posted during the weekend on social media two videos of the impact of the bridges over the Seym River. Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC, analyzed on Tuesday by the Associated Press news agency, confirmed that a bridge in the town of Glushkovo had been destroyed.

A Russian military investigator confirmed on Monday that Ukraine had "completely destroyed" one bridge and damaged two others in the area. The full extent of the damage remains unclear.

"As a result of rocket and artillery attacks against residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the village of Karyzh ... a third bridge over the Seym River was damaged," the unidentified representative of Russia's Investigative Committee said in a video posted on the Telegram channel. of Russian state television journalist Vladimir Solovyov.

Since the start of the Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region, Kiev's army has taken control of 1,250 square kilometers of Russian territory and 92 settlements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Russia's state news agency, TASS, reported that 17 people have died and 140 have been injured since the start of the Ukrainian attack, citing an unnamed source in the Russian medical service. Among the 75 people hospitalized, four are children.

Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said on Tuesday afternoon that more than 500 people had been evacuated from danger zones in the Kursk region over the past 24 hours. In total, more than 122,000 people have been displaced since the start of the Ukrainian offensive, according to Moscow.

In another example of the war shifting from Ukraine to the Russian interior, a massive fire continues to burn for the third day in a row after an oil depot was hit by Ukrainian drones.

According to Russian state news agencies, 500 firefighters were involved in the firefighting operation and 41 of them have already been hospitalized with injuries.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army claimed responsibility on Sunday for the attack on the oil depot, which is used to supply Russian forces, calling it an action "to undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian Federation".

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukrainians of "trying to destabilize our country" and likened them to terrorists.

"We will punish the criminals. There can be no doubt about that," President Putin said on Tuesday. He was meeting with the mothers of children killed in the 2004 Beslan school attack by Islamist militants that left more than 330 dead.

Ukraine's attack on Russian territory has exposed Russian weaknesses, according to Ukrainian analysts and officials.

"Now we have achieved an extremely important ideological change: the naive concept of the so-called "red lines" in relation to Russia that dominated the assessments of the war by some of our partners has collapsed these days somewhere near Sudzha," said Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. referring to a Russian-occupied city now under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine's operations in Russia still have many unknowns, but satellite images provide some clues.

Temporary bridges used by the military when formal bridges are destroyed can be seen over the past few days in satellite images provided by Planet Labs PBC at two different positions along the Seym River. The temporary bridges were likely built by Russian troops trying to supply forces opposing the Ukrainian advance.

One such bridge appeared along the winding river bed between Glushkovo and the village of Zvannoye on Saturday, but not in images taken on Monday. On Monday, smoke could be seen rising along the banks of the nearby river, usually a sign of an attack.

Meanwhile, along the front line in eastern Ukraine, Russia continued to pound the city of Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine's main defensive bastions and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region. This forced Kiev's forces to withdraw and Ukrainian civilians to flee their homes. Its capture would compromise Ukraine's defense capabilities and supply routes and bring Russia closer to its goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region.

Russia's six-month battle across the region following the capture of Avdiivka has cost both sides heavily with heavy casualties in troops and destruction of armor.

Russia wants to take control of all parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, which together make up the industrial region of Donbass./ Voa