Kyiv sees advantages in the “Kursk buffer zone”

Location at a glance

Kyiv sees advantages in the “Kursk buffer zone”

The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ Operation Kursk brings Ukraine more than just gaining territory in Russia. But the calculation doesn’t quite add up, as Russian successes in Donbass show.

Five months after the start of the Ukrainian offensive on Russian territory near Kursk, President Volodymyr Zelensky underlines the importance of this operation. “We maintain a buffer zone on Russian territory and actively destroy Russian military potential there,” Zelensky said in his evening video address. Russia has already lost 38,000 soldiers in the course of this action and in its counteroffensive, 15,000 of whom were killed. An independent verification of this figure was not possible because both warring parties did not report their own losses.

An important effect of the operation near Kursk is that Russia has relocated its strongest units and soldiers from North Korea there. “It is important that the occupier cannot now send all these forces to our other areas, especially to the Donetsk region, especially against Sumy, especially to Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia,” Zelensky said.

The current situation in eastern Ukraine was discussed at a meeting of the General Staff. According to Zelensky, the defense of the city of Pokrovsk on the edge of Donbass should be strengthened. “The Pokrovsk thrust has been one of the hottest in the past four weeks,” said Viktor Trehubov, spokesman for the brigade of Ukrainian units fighting there. But the Russian attackers were unable to “achieve such a success that would allow them to directly threaten the city of Pokrovsk itself.”

Zelensky did not mention the situation near Kurakhove at all. According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russian troops have taken the strategically important small town. This means that the most populous town in the southwest of the Donbass region has been captured, the press release says. After the capture of Kurakhove, the Russian armed forces advanced into open maneuvering areas. This makes it possible to increase the pace of conquering further areas.

There was no confirmation of this from the Ukrainian side. In the evening, the General Staff in Kiev reported further battles in the Kurachove region in its daily situation report, although the combat areas Slovyanka, Petropavlivsk and Dachne mentioned were already west of the small town of Kurachove. Russian air strikes were concentrated on the town of Andriivka, around ten kilometers away. It is currently unclear where the Ukrainian armed forces have set up the next line of defense.

The fighting for Kurachowe lasted around two months. The Ukrainians were able to hold the place longer than experts had actually expected. Of the once 18,000 residents, only a fraction remained behind. After the heavy fighting, much of the town is now just a pile of rubble. Moscow’s losses are considered high.

A bus was hit in a Russian drone attack on the southern Ukrainian port city of Kherson. A man was killed and several other people were injured, regional military administrator Roman Mrotschko said on Telegram. According to official information, six passengers on the bus were injured, including five women. A municipal official was killed in the explosion.

A few hours earlier, a Russian combat drone seriously injured three police officers in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine. As the regional military administrator Oleh Synyehubov reported, the police officers were attacked by a “Molnija-1” (Lightning) combat drone, which is mainly made of plywood.