Ukraine’s top commander said on Tuesday (27 August) that Kyiv’s forces were still advancing in Russia’s Kursk region, but warned that Moscow was building up its forces on the eastern Pokrovsk front, where Russian troops have been advancing.
General Oleksandr Syrskyi said by video link in remarks broadcast on television that Russia was trying to disrupt Ukraine’s supply lines to the front near Pokrovsk, a coal mining city that has strategic military value as a transport hub.
“The situation on the Pokrovsk front is fairly difficult … the enemy is using its advantage in personnel, weapons and military equipment, it is actively using artillery and aviation,” he said.
Ukraine’s three-week-old thrust into Russia’s Kursk region has captured 100 settlements, he said.
Moscow’s troops were trying to counterattack in the area and encircle Kyiv’s forces, but those attempts were being repelled, he added.
He said that one of the objectives of the Kursk operation was to divert Russian forces from other areas, primarily the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors.
“The Kursk operation diverted a significant number of its forces,” he said, noting that Russian troops had been drawn from Ukraine’s south.
“As of now, we can say that around 30,000 servicemen have been sent to the Kursk front and this figure is growing.”
But he said Russia was strengthening its force on the Pokrovsk front.
Disclosing a number for the first time, Syrskyi said that Ukraine had captured 594 Russian servicemen during its operation in the Kursk region.
Ukrainian drones set oil tanks on fire at an depot in Russia’s Rostov region, Russian Telegram channels reported on Wednesday.
Russia’s air defence units destroyed four drones over the Rostov region overnight, the Russian defence ministry and Rostov’s governor, Vasily Golubev, said on the Telegram messaging app, but made no mention of an attack on an oil depot.
The Baza Telegram channel, which is close to Russia’s security services, said that three tanks were burning at an oil depot in the Kamensky district of the Rostov region after two drones fell on the area.
Videos posted on Russian social media showed what looked like large tanks ablaze at night. Reuters was able to identify the location of one of the videos as in Rostov’s Kamensky district.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
A fuel storage depot in the Kamensky district was attacked in early August as well.
The attack comes while tanks were still on fire at another Rostov’s oil depot, in the Proletarsk district, some 10 days after a Ukrainian attack, Russian Telegram channels report.
Separately, Alexander Gusev, the governor of the Voronezh region that borders Ukraine, said debris from a Ukraine-launched drone over the region sparked a fire “near explosive objects.” Gusev added that there was no detonation.
The fire had been extinguished, Gusev said on Telegram, and residents from two settlements who were evacuated from their homes were returning.
The Russian defence ministry said eight attack drones were destroyed over the Voronezh region, but it provided no further detail.
Russian officials often do not disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the 30-month-old war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbour. Kyiv says that its air attacks aim to destroy energy, transport and military infrastructure that’s key to Moscow’s overall war effort.
