Ukrainian troops in the Sumy region near the border with Russia’s Kursk region, August 11, 2024 (Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters)

Tuesday’s Coverage: Kyiv Claims Capture of 1,000 Square Km Inside Russia

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1207 GMT:

Ukrainian drones struck four Russian airbases overnight in the largest attack during Vladimir Putin’s invasion, says the Ukraine State security service SBU.

The Ukraine military claimed the destruction of a Su-34 fighter-bomber.

Kyiv said earlier today that attacks were carried out on an airbase in the Nizhny Novgorod region and two in the Voronezh region (see 0910 GMT).

An official said a base in the Kursk region in western Russia was also targeted amid Ukraine’s cross-border incursion.

“We are waiting for satellite photos of destroyed Russian fighters and warehouses,” the source said.

UPDATE 1059 GMT:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has reassured that, during the incursion into western Russia, “we are not forgetting our eastern front [in Ukraine] for a second”.

He said, “I have instructed the Commander-in-Chief to strengthen this direction using the equipment and supplies currently provided by our partners.”

Zelenskiy asserted that the Ukrainian incursion is advancing in the Kursk region [by] one to two kilometers in various areas since the beginning of the day. We have captured more than 100 Russian servicemen during this period.”

UPDATE 1043 GMT:

Ukrainian journalists report from Sudzha, the border town in Russia’s Kursk region now controlled by Ukraine’s forces.

UPDATE 0924 GMT:

Conscripts who evacuated from the Russia’s Kursk region during Ukraine’s incursion are being pressured to return to the frontlines, say two of their mothers.

The Kremlin has maintained conscripts will be put into battle in Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine.

The men are told that after signing contracts with the Russian Defense Ministry, they will follow stormtroopers to “clean the territory”, the mothers said. After signing a contract, the soldiers are also promised benefits and “combat pay” of 4,000 to 4,500 roubles (around $44 to $50) per day.

The mothers said there are around 150 conscripts in one of the units in the Kursk region.

My son called, they were told: “You’ll go anyway, but now we’ll pay you combat pay….And if you don’t agree, you’ll go to court and still go [to fight], you won’t get away with it.”

Parents of conscripts serving in the 80th Motorized Rifle Division in the Murmansk Region in eastern Russia say their sons have been told they are going to be sent on a “business trip” to the Kursk region.

UPDATE 0910 GMT:

Ukraine has carried out drone attacks on three military airfields inside Russia overnight.

About ten drones flew towards the Savasleyka airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region, around 650 km (404 miles) from the border. Explosions were heard, and the nearby area was closed. Governor Gleb Nikitin said air defense and electronic warfare systems operated “to suppress the attack of unmanned aircraft-type aerial vehicles”.

Nikitin said preliminary information indicated no casualties.

Ukrainian drones also attacked a military airfield in Borisoglebsk in the east of the Voronezh region, setting a fire. Baltimore airfield in the region, where Su-34 aircraft are based, was also hit.

Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev reported 35 drones, with damage to several residential and non-residential buildings, public utilities, and vehicles. He said there were no casualties.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed four Tochka-U tactical missiles and 117 drones were shot down overnight.

UPDATE 0844 GMT:

At least three civilians have been killed and 13 injured, including a child, by Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

In Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, a 33-year-old man was killed when he was hit in the chest by shrapnel.

In the Donetsk region in the east, one person was killed during a Russian attack against Zhuravka, and two were injured in Shcherbynivka.

One civilian was killed and four injured in the Sumy region in the north near the Russian border.

Seven people were injured in the Kherson region in the south.

Ukraine air defenses downed 17 of 23 Iran-type drones launched by Russia overnight from occupied Crimea. The Russians also attacked Ukraine with two Kh-59/69 guided aerial missiles, fired from the Belgorod region in western Russia.

UPDATE 0737 GMT:

Ukrainian and American officials are reporting Moscow’s withdrawal of forces from Ukraine to western Russia amid Kyiv’s incursion, but are not certain about the extent of the redeployment.

US officials told the Wall Street Journal of the movement. They said that they are still assessing the significance.

Ukraine’s military said Russia has begun pulling some soldiers from the southern front in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

In a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Lithuanian Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said Moscow is transferring some forces to the Kursk region from the Kaliningrad enclave between Lithuania and Poland.

Map:Institute for the Study of War

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia’s Belgorod region has declared a state of emergency, joining neighboring Kursk, amid Ukraine’s 8-day incursion into the west of the country.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, “The situation in the Belgorod region continues to be extremely difficult and tense.”

He appealed to the Kremlin to declare a federal emergency.

The announcement undercut the ongoing propaganda of Russian officials that they have repelled the Ukrainian cross-border advance. Kyiv’s forces now hold around 1,000 square km (386 square miles), with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying they occupy 74 settlements.

Most of the territory is in the Kursk region; however, troops moved into Belgorod to the north earlier this week.

Around 200,000 residents have been evacuated while Russia’s leaders scramble to bring reserves into the area.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskiy said:

I would like to thank all our soldiers who replenish the exchange fund [of POWs]. It is very important for our country

Hundreds of Russian soldiers have already surrendered, and all of them will be treated humanely. They did not even receive such treatment in their own Russian army.

Vladimir Putin declared on Monday to officials, “The enemy will certainly get the response he deserves, and all our goals, without doubt, will be accomplished.”

However, he showed concern with changes in military leadership yesterday.

Putin appointed Alexei Dyumin, his former bodyguard, commander of the northern direction of the “special military operation”.

Dyumin had been Governor of the Tula region, north of Moscow. An officer in the GRU military intelligence service, he was involved in the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Analysts and Ukrainian advisors suggested that the change showed Putin’s lack of trust in his generals, with his priority on putting political cronies into command positions. One wrote to EA:

Crimea was easy because the Ukrainians had an almost non-existent army or armaments and no US or Europeans to back them up.

This is a different operation that Dyumin has never done before: liberate an area under artillery defense, even if a bit stretched. He’s not a military strategist: his operations were small-scale takeovers, sabotage, etc.

If this goes wrong for Putin, he could be the ultimate fall guy.