The Ukrainian military has released footage of the aftermath of a deadly ambush on a Russian counteroffensive this week.
The video shows two Russian tanks in flames in the middle of a road near Zelenyi Shlyakh in the Kursk region of Russia. The tanks had tried to advance and retake Russian territory seized by Ukraine. However, the military plan ended in flames.
It has been over two months since Ukraine’s incursion into the southwestern Russian region, which has made the war hit home for many ordinary Russians and has continued to frustrate the senior Russian leadership.
Ukraine continues to hold onto huge swathes of Russia‘s Kursk region since the incursion in early August. At one point they controlled around 1,300 square kilometres (500 square miles) of Russian land.
The footage was shared on Telegram by the Khorne Group, a surveillance and target acquisition branch of Ukraine‘s 116th Separate Mechanized Brigade. It is unclear if there were more Russian tanks involved in the advance.
The embarrassing setback for the Russian military comes as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave an update on the situation in Kursk.
On Saturday evening, President Zelensky said Russian forces had tried to oust Ukrainian troops from positions in Russia’s Kursk border region, but that Kyiv’s forces were holding their lines.
He said: “Russia tried to push back our positions, but we are holding the designated lines.”
Russia’s defence ministry said on Friday that its forces had recaptured two villages in the border Kursk region.
Russian military Telegram accounts, such as Rybar, claim that Russian forces have broken through Ukrainian defences and cut off key supply routes for Ukraine‘s army.
The Ukrainian advance into Kursk was intended to draw Russian troops away from frontline positions in eastern Ukraine. This has been partially successful, with Russia diverting significant amounts of troops towards Kursk as they try to mount a counteroffensive.
The incursion was also intended to create a buffer zone in the region to stop shelling of Ukraine‘s border areas.
Also in his nightly address, President Zelensky acknowledged that the situation for Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donetsk region and southern Zaporizhzhia region was “very difficult”.