Ukraine updates: Kyiv says still advancing in Kursk

Ukraine says there is not sign of Russian military pressure easing along the eastern front inside its borders, despite Ukrainian troops' prolonged incursion into Russia.

The heaviest fighting in weeks was reported near the town of Pokrovsk, a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region.

The head of Pokrovsk's military administration urged locals to evacuate, saying Russian forces were getting nearer.

Military spokesman Dmytro Lykhoviy told national television Russia had moved some troops from Ukraine's occupied south to other areas. However, he said it had not constituted a big redeployment for now.

"No significant changes in the size of the group were detected, and the number of the personnel is not changing enough to indicate any differences or weakening in ... hostilities," Lykhoviy said.

Tanks donated to Ukraine by the UK have been deployed as part of Kyiv's ongoing incursion into Russia, according to Sky News and other UK outlets.

It is believed to be the first time the Challenger 2 tanks have been used in active combat on Russian territory.

Details on how and when Ukrainian forces potentially deployed the tanks were not immediately clear, Sky said. Neither was the number of tanks that may have been involved.

The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment on what specific weaponry Ukraine was using.

It noted that "operations inside Russia" had not been precluded when the tanks and other arms were donated to Kyiv.

"There has been no change in UK government policy," a ministry spokesman said. 

Ukraine's 82nd Air Assault Brigade, which has been operating the British tanks since last year, has been involved in the Kursk incursion.

Former British Defence Minister Ben Wallace said that, during his tenure, he had given permission for Ukraine to hit targets inside Russia using "whatever weapons [were] supplied to it, the UK's Times newspaper reported on Wednesday.

However, he also added that restrictions had been placed on the use of the long-range Storm Shadow missiles.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko says Russia and Ukraine should negotiate an end to their conflict to avoid the war spreading into Belarus.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, was speaking in an interview with Russian state television against the backdrop of Ukraine's incursion into Russia's Kursjk region.

The leader said that only "high-ranking people of American origin" wanted the Ukraine-Russia war to continue.

Lukashenko suggested, without providing evidence, that Kyiv could have plans to attack Belarus, adding that Minsk would not allow Ukrainian troops to "trample on our country."

"Let's sit down at the negotiating table and end this brawl," he said. "Neither the Ukrainian people, nor the Russians, nor the Belarusians need it. They [the West] need it."
 

Kyiv has set up a military office in the occupied part of Russia's Kursk region, Ukraine's top commander Oleksandr Syrskyisaid on Thursday in a video report to the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

The headquarters will ensure that law and order are maintained and help meet the basic needs of the local population.

In the report, published on President Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel, Syrskyi also said that Ukrainian troops have made fresh advances  into Russian territory.

The information could not be independently verified.

A Russian Tu-22M3 airplane crashed in the country's Irkutsk region, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The ministry specified that the flight was a planned one and that the crew had ejected with no threat to their lives.

"According to preliminary data the cause of the accident was a technical malfunction,"  the ministry said.

"The plane fell in a deserted area. There is no destruction on the ground. 

The Tu-22M3 is a long-range supersonic missile-carrying bomber designed to hit sea and land-based targets. It can also carry nuclear warheads.

Russia commonly uses the planes, NATO codenamed "Backfire," to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine. 

However, it's unclear if the plane had any role in the ongoing war in Ukraine — Irkutsk, in Siberia, lies about 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) east of the theater of operations. 

The Ukrainian military said in April that its anti-missile units succeeded for the first time in downing a Russian Tu-22M3 bomber plane. Russia said the plane had crashed because of a technical malfunction as it returned to base.

The United Nations has asked Moscow to allow its officials to access the regions affected by Ukraine's recent cross-border incursion.

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told the French news agency AFP that the request had been made on Wednesday.

"I can confirm that the UN Human Rights Office has sent a request to the Russian authorities to facilitate access by the Office to areas of the Russian Federation affected by the hostilities, including Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions, further to our human rights monitoring and assessment mandate," Liz Throssell said.

The UN has made similar requests to Russia to gain access to territories within Russia as well as those under Russian occupation in Ukraine, but these have never been granted.

A day after it was revealed that a Ukrainian national was the likely ringleader of a 2022 attack on the Nord Stream Russian-European gas pipelines, Kyiv has denied advanced knowledge of the sabotage.

"Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources... And who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia," presidental adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters news agency.

The main suspect, Volodymyr Z., was believed to be living in Poland until an arrest warrant was issued. He then fled to Ukraine. Polish authorities have accused Germany, who issued the warrant, of not properly registering it and thus not giving Poland the information it needed to make the arrest in time.

A Russian commander said on Thursday that Ukraine does not have full control of the town of Suzhda in the Russian region of Kursk that has become a new hotspot in the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict.

Apti Alaudinov, the leader of Chechnya's Akhmat Special Forces, wrote on Telegram that Russian forces were operating in the town, countering the Ukrainian claim that it had full control.

The situation on the ground could not be independently verified.

Suzhda is home to a facility that acts as the single point of access for Russian gas heading into Europe.

Ukrainian forces were able to gain a foothold in Russia's Kursk region with a small number of troops accompanied by tanks. The incident marks the first time Ukrainian ground forces have gone on the offensive inside of Russian territory.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustam Umerov had a "productive conversation" with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin about his country's defense needs, according to a statement he posted on social media on Thursday.

"I informed [Austin] about current situation at front and priority needs for our Defence Forces," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

"I am grateful to Secretary Austin and American people for their continuous and comprehensive support since the beginning of Russian full-scale invasion," he added.

The US has provided Ukraine with more than $55 billion (€50 billion) in military aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine has said that its troops have taken more ground, captured more Russian prisoners and destroyed a bomber in attacks on military airfields as their cross-border advance into Russia's Kursk region enters its second week. 

In a video published on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Telegram channel, the commander of the Ukrainian military, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that assault troops advanced 1 to 2 kilometers (about a mile) further into areas of Kursk on Wednesday. 

He added that Ukrainian troops also captured more than 100 Russian soldiers.

Ukraine's forces destroyed a Russian Su-34 jet used to launch glide bombs at Ukrainian border posts and cities, Syrskyi said.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities in Kursk region have asked people in the region's Glushkov district to evacuate, acting governor Alexei Smirnov said late Wednesday. The district, which has a population of over 20,000, directly borders Ukraine. 

dvv/rm (AP, Reuters)