Russia-Ukraine war live: key bridges destroyed in Kursk as Ukraine ‘leaves trail of destruction’

Russia has accused Nato and the west more widely of aiding the Ukrainian incursion, including by permitting the use of western-supplied equipment. But British officials said Ukraine was entitled under international law to use British-donated equipment in operations, including within Russia.

“There has been no change in UK government policy; under article 51 of the UN charter, Ukraine has a clear right of self-defence against Russia’s illegal attacks, [and] that does not preclude operations inside Russia,” the Ministry of Defence said.

It appears, however, there has been no change in the UK’s refusal to allow Ukraine to use British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles against targets inside Russia, suggesting a delicate balancing act.

The US so far has also deemed the incursion a protective move in which it is appropriate for Kyiv to use US equipment, officials in Washington said. But they expressed worries about complications as Ukrainian troops pushed further into enemy territory.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that if Ukraine started taking Russian villages and other non-military targets using US weapons and vehicles, it could be seen as stretching the limits Washington has imposed, precisely to avoid any perception of a direct Nato-Russia conflict.

Ukraine has said that one of the aims of its current incursion into Russia is to counter artillery and missile fire into Ukraine and create a buffer zone.

Reporters from the Associated Press say that, on a trip through Kursk organised by the Ukrainian government, they witnessed a “trail of destruction”.

They report:

A trail of destruction lies in the path that Ukrainian forces carved on their risky incursion into Russia, blasting through the border and eventually into the town of Sudzha.

Artillery fire has blown chunks out of a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin that stands in a central square of the Russian town, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday was fully under his troops’ control. The windows of an administrative building are blasted out, and its bright yellow facade is scorched and pockmarked with bullet holes.

Ukrainian forces have overrun one Russian settlement after another in the surprise operation that Kyiv hopes will change the dynamic of the two-and-a-half-year-old conflict.

Russia’s military has so far struggled to mount an effective response to the attack on its Kursk region, the largest on the country since World War II. Sudzha, which is 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border, is the biggest town to fall to Ukraine’s troops since the incursion began Aug. 6.

Evidence of Ukraine’s lightning march lines the roads to the town. On grass littered with debris lies a sign blasted with bullets that has arrows in two directions: Ukraine to the left and Russia to right. A burned-out tank stands by the side of a road.

Yesterday, two key bridges were destroyed in Russia’s Kursk region on the Seim river.

Now, Moscow says Ukraine likely used missiles supplied by the US.

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said on the Telegram messaging app:

For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS.

As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seym River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.

The US, which has said it cannot allow Russian president Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of US weaponry, officials in Washington said.

Hello, we are restarting our rolling coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war.

Moscow claims western-made missiles were used in the destruction of two key bridges in the Kursk region, as Ukraine continues its incursion into Russia as it bids to change the course of the two-and-a-half year war.

Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had likely used US-made HIMARS to destroy a bridge over the Seym river, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.

More on that shortly. In other developments:

• Military authorities in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk urged civilians to speed up their evacuation on Friday because the Russian army was quickly closing in on what has been one of Moscow’s key targets for months. Pokrovsk officials said in a Telegram post that Russian troops were “advancing at a fast pace. With every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions.” Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the eastern Donetsk region. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes and bring Russia closer than ever to its stated aim of capturing the whole region.

• Ukraine’s lightning offensive into several Russian border regions is designed to persuade Moscow to engage in “fair” talks about its war in Ukraine, an aide to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday. “We need to inflict significant tactical defeats on Russia,” the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “In the Kursk region, we clearly see how the military tool is objectively used to convince the Russian Federation to enter into a fair negotiation process.”

• Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Friday that Kyiv’s forces were advancing between one and three kilometres in some areas in Russia’s Kursk region. Ukraine has said it has taken control of 82 settlements over an area of 1,150 sq km (444 sq miles) in the region after it launched a major cross-border attack on 6 August. Briefing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy via video link, Syrskyi reported fighting in the area of Malaya Loknya, some 11.5km from the Ukrainian border.

• It appeared that Ukraine had largely cut off a significant area of Glushovsky district of Kursk and Russian troops there after blowing up two important bridges on the Seim river. A mass evacuation is under way in the Glushkov district, home to 20,000 people, and the destruction of one bridge had hindered their evacuation, the Russian news agency Tass reported.

• Later, Russia’s foreign ministry said Ukraine had used western rockets, likely US-made Himars, to destroy one bridge, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians. “For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by western-made rocket launchers, probably American Himars,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry, said late on Friday on Telegram. “As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seim River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.” The account could not immediately be verified.

• Italy’s ambassador to Moscow defended media “independence” on Friday after Russian authorities summoned her over an Italian television report in the embattled Kursk region, the foreign ministry said. Cecilia Piccioni faced a “strong protest” over the Italian broadcaster RAI’s reporting team, which “illegally entered Russia to cover the criminal terrorist attack by Ukrainian soldiers against the Kursk region”, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Piccioni explained during the meeting that RAI, “and in particular the editorial teams, plan their activities in a totally free and independent way”, an Italian foreign ministry spokesman told Agence France-Presse.

• Economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia will remain in place for decades, even if there is a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, a senior Russian foreign ministry official said on Friday. Russia became the most sanctioned country by the west after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, surpassing Iran and North Korea. “This is a story for decades to come. Whatever the developments and results of a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, it is, in fact, only a pretext,” said Dmitry Birichevsky, head of the economic cooperation department at the foreign ministry.

• Russia added at least nine more people linked to late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to its blacklist of “terrorists and extremists” on Friday, exactly six months after he died in prison. Among those listed were Navalny’s former spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh and the chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation, Maria Pevchikh, according to the website of Russian financial monitoring service Rosfinmonitoring.

• More than 200 vehicles that fell foul of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) have been sent to Ukraine to aid the country’s war effort, despite initial legal concerns over the plan. Transport for London said on Friday that 330 vehicles had been given the green light to be sent to Ukraine under the Ulez vehicle scrappage scheme. More than 200 are already in the eastern European country.