In a statement yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared some rather ambitious goals for the Kursk operation. “It is now our primary task in defensive operations overall: to destroy as much Russian war potential as possible and conduct maximum counteroffensive actions,” Zelenskyy said in a national broadcast. Those include “creating a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory—our operation in the Kursk region. Everything that inflicts losses on the Russian army, Russian state, their military-industrial complex, and their economy helps prevent the war from expanding and brings us closer to a just end to this aggression.”
Kyiv’s foothold in Kursk is “getting stronger” with troops reinforcing their positions, according to Zelenskyy. Kyiv says it controls nearly 1,000 sq. km of Russian territory, and both Russia and Ukraine have urged residents to evacuate from areas where heavy fighting is ongoing.
“The Air Force aviation continues to deprive the enemy of logistics capabilities with precision airstrikes, which significantly affects the course of combat operations,” Ukrainian Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk said, in a social media post that included a video, showing plumes of smoke engulfing parts of a bridge over the Seim River that Ukrainian forces had destroyed earlier.
