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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 20:13:48 GMT
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it prevented Ukraine from advancing further on the fifth day of the unprecedented attack into the province of Kursk, though there were reports of regional power outages after an electricity substation was hit.
Fighting was said to be taking place in three villages between seven and 11 miles from the international border – Ivashkovskoye, Malaya Loknya and Olgovka – similar locations to where Ukraine is estimated to have advanced previously.
In a morning statement, the defence ministry said it had “thwarted the attempts of the enemy’s mobile groups to get to the depth of the Russian territory” and there were no other significant reports to the contrary.
Russia’s FSB domestic security agency also imposed a “counter-terrorism” regime on Kursk and two neighbouring oblasts, Bryansk and Belgorod, giving the authorities sweeping powers to lock down an area and impose controls on communications.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 20:35:45 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 23:49:12 GMT
Russia says it has used a thermobaric bomb against Ukrainian forces as it announced a "counter-terrorism" operation to retaliate against Ukraine's shock incursion into Kursk.
The Russian defence ministry said fighting was continuing in the western Kursk region following Ukraine's unprecedented attack on its territory earlier this week.
The Russian army has conducted airstrikes against Ukrainian forces, including using a thermobaric bomb, also known as a vacuum bomb.
The pressure from the bomb's extra hot blast is capable of vaporising human bodies.
It is not the first time Moscow is reported to have deployed such weapons, as Ukrainian officials alleged they were being used in the invasion just weeks after it began in February 2022.
Using vacuum bombs is not a breach of international law, but targeting civilians with them is.
Moscow on Saturday announced it was launching a "counter-terrorism operation" in response to the largest cross-border attack by Ukraine since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of his smaller neighbour.
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Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2024 23:52:41 GMT
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Post by Admin on Aug 11, 2024 1:54:46 GMT
As the Ukrainian invasion of Russia grinds into its fifth day, Ukrainian troops have advanced as far as 10 miles into Kursk Oblast—and are beginning to mop up any Russian troops they bypassed in their hurry to extend their zone of control.
The Russians, meanwhile, are finally bringing to bear their heaviest firepower—lobbing powerful glide bombs at Ukrainian columns rolling along Russian roads.
For more than a year, these glide bombs—each ranging 25 miles or farther with hundreds of pounds of explosives—have been Russia’s most powerful offensive weapons, demolishing Ukrainian defenses ahead of Russian ground assaults.
Now they’re defensive weapons—and potentially Russia’s main means of slowing Ukrainian assaults until fresh Russian ground troops arrive in Kursk.
Russian air force Sukhoi Su-34 fighter-bombers drop as many as 100 KAB glide bombs every day. Until this week they mostly dropped them along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where Russian regiments have been advancing—slowly and at great cost—all spring and summer.
The bombing campaign began shifting north around Tuesday, roughly the same time the vanguard of at least five Ukrainian brigades rolled across the border into Kursk, kicking off a surprise counter-invasion in the 29th month of Russia’s wider war on Ukraine.
As Ukrainian battalions attacked from their bases in Sumy Oblast, right across the border from Kursk, Russian bombs rained down. “The intensity of combat in the Sumy direction has increased,” the Ukrainian general staff reported on Wednesday. “The enemy is actively applying aviation, helicopters, heavy weapons.”
“There is a noticeable shift in the focus of the enemy's aviation efforts in the theater of operations,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies noted. “Up to 50 percent of all guided bomb strikes ... now target the territories of Kursk and Sumy Oblasts.”
Anticipating this development, the Ukrainian military deployed what one Russian blogger characterized as “a significant amount” of air-defense batteries as well as electronic jammers that can block radio signals and, in some cases, even throw off satellite-guided bombs.
With a big assist from explosive drones, the Ukrainian batteries shot down several Russian helicopters. Firing back, Russian artillery damaged one Ukrainian BUK air-defense vehicle.
The bombing of Sumy didn’t stop Ukrainian troops from marching into neighboring Kursk and capturing several towns including most Sudzha, so far the locus of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian army mobilized reinforcements, but Ukrainian rockets blocked some of them from reaching the front line in Kursk.
So the Russian fighter-bombers shifted their aim points to Russian soil. On Thursday, KABs struck Ukrainian vehicles in the Russian village of Darino, on the northern edge of the Ukrainian advance. On Friday, glide bombs pummeled Ukrainian troops in Leonidovo, not far from Darino.
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