Ukraine tightens its grip on Kursk after blowing up third key bridge

Kyiv destroyed their first bridge on Friday in the village of Glushkovo, around eight miles west of the Ukrainian troops inside Russia’s position.

The second was destroyed on Saturday in the village of Zvannoye, a further five miles westward.

The third bridge, located in the village of Karyzh, was  reportedly destroyed on Sunday night.

All three bridges run over the Seim river which runs through the Kursk, and connects the region to the rest of the Russia. By destroying the bridges it prevents Russian troops from accessing the captured areas and means Kremlin forces are now reliant on receiving military equipment via makeshift pontoon bridges, according to analysts.

A Russian military investigator confirmed on Monday that Ukraine had ‘totally destroyed’ one bridge and damaged two others in the area, although the full extent of the damage remains unclear.

‘As a result of targeted shelling with the use of rocket and artillery weapons against residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the Karyzh village … a third bridge over the Seim River was damaged,’ the unnamed representative for Russia’s Investigative Committee said in a video published on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV anchor Vladimir Solovyov.

Since the incursion into the Kursk region began, the Ukrainian army has captured 480 square miles and 92 settlements, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Hundreds of Russian troops have also been captured by the Ukrainian forces and taken prisoner, as Putin has refused to pull soldiers away from the frontlines and sent poorly trained conscripts to defend the area.

Mr Zelensky said in recent days that the operation is aimed at creating a buffer zone that can prevent future attacks on his nation from across the border, and that Ukraine is capturing a large number of Russian prisoners of war that it hopes to exchange for captured Ukrainians.

Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said on Tuesday afternoon that more than 500 people had left dangerous areas in the Kursk region over the past 24 hours. In total, more than 122,000 people have been resettled since the Ukrainian attack began, it said.

In another example of Ukraine taking the war to Russian soil, a massive fire burned for the third consecutive day after an oil depot was hit by Ukrainian drones.

The fire at the depot in the town of Proletarsk burned across an area of a hectare, according to Russian state news agencies. There were 500 firefighters involved in the operation, and 41 of them have already been admitted to hospital with injuries, according to TASS, citing local officials.

Ukraine’s Army General Staff claimed responsibility on Sunday for attacking the oil depot, which was used to supply the needs of Russia’s army, calling it a measure to undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian Federation’.

Russian President Vladimir Putin accused the Ukrainians of ‘trying to destabilise our country’ and compared them to terrorists.

Ukraine’s incursion has exposed Russian vulnerabilities according to analysts and Ukrainian officials.

Mr Zelensky said on Monday that he believes Ukraine’s actions would help to dispel Western fears of offering more robust military aid to Kyiv. Some allies have been handing over weapons slowly and imposing limits on how they can be used, fearing that crossing a Russian ‘red-line’ could lead to escalation, even nuclear escalation.

‘We have now achieved an extremely important ideological shift: the naive and illusory concept of so-called ‘red lines’ regarding Russia that dominated the assessments of the war by some of our partners has crumbled these days somewhere near Sudzha,’ the president said, referring to a seized Russian town under Ukrainian control.

Russian forces appear to have attempted to use pontoon bridges to cross the river and attempt to reclaim their territory.

But satellite imagery appears to show smoke rising from the location of the pontoon bridges, possibly indicating an artillery  strike.

Meanwhile along the frontline in eastern Ukraine, Russia continued to bear down on the city of Pokrovsk, one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region, forcing Kyiv’s forces to pull back and Ukrainian civilians to flee their homes. 

Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.