Ukraine updates: More advances in Kursk, says Kyiv – DW – 08/18/2024

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov boasted of having a Cyberbeast luxury truck from US carmaker Tesla.

“A truly invulnerable and fast animal,” Kadyrov said in a post on the Telegram messaging service.

Kadyrov thanked Tesla CEO Elon Musk and invited him to Chechnya.

“I express my sincere gratitude to Elon Musk! This is, of course, the strongest genius of our time and a specialist. A great man!” he said.

“I am sure this ‘beast’ will be of great use to our fighters,” he said, referring to soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

Kadyrov is the head of the autonomous republic of Chechnya in Russia’s northern Caucasus.

An industrial warehouse containing diesel fuel in Russia‘s Rostov region has caught fire after debris from a destroyed Ukrainian drone hit the building, the regional governor has said.

“Firefighting units were called in to put out the fire,” Governor Vasily Golubev said on the Telegram messaging app, saying in a separate post that no one was injured in the incident in the Proletarsk district.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram that its air defense units destroyed two Ukraine-launched drones over Rostov overnight.

Kyiv has said that it is targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure in particular in a bid to undermine supply to that country’s military amid its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Kyiv’s forces have bolstered their foothold in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukraine has been carrying out an offensive since August 6.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi had reported that positions in the area had been strengthened and the stabilized area had grown. 

Previous reports from Kyiv have said Ukraine controls more than 80 localities and 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) in the region, figures that cannot be independently verified.

Ukrainian forces ‘strengthening their positions’ in Kursk

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The Ukrainian Air Force says it has destroyed a strategically important road bridge over the Seim River in the Glushkovo district amid Kyiv’s almost two-week-long incursion in Russia’s Kursk region.  

Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk published a video on the messaging app showing the purported bombing of the bridge, which is a crucial supply route for Russian troops.

Experts say the footage seems authentic.

Russia had reported earlier that the bridge had been destroyed. Russian military bloggers said on Telegram that the bridge was first shelled with US-made rockets and then destroyed by a strike with a glide bomb. 

They also said two volunteers in a car had been killed while trying to bring people to safety during the shelling.

Moscow’s forces have destroyed numerous Ukrainian bridges during Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
 

Ukrainian forces say they succeeded in warding off overnight missile and drone attacks targeting Kyiv. 

“This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack,” the Kyiv City Military Administration posted on Telegram.

No damage or casualties were reported from the missile attack. The administration said Russian forces had “most likely used North Korean ballistic missiles of the KN-23 type.”

“All enemy drones were destroyed far outside the city,” it added.
    

Russian state atomic agency Rosatom told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that there was a worsening situation at the Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia.

Ukrainian forces have been pushing into the Russian border region of Kursk over the past several days in a surprise incursion.

Rosatom chief Alexei Likhachov invited the IAEA’s Rafael Grossi to visit Kursk and see the situation at the plant and the associated town of Kurchatov, Rosatom told the Russian news agency Interfax.

According to Russian reports, missile parts were recently found at the nuclear power plant site.

It comes after the IAEA said that it believed that the situation at the Zaporizhzhya plant in Russian-occupied southern Ukraine was worsening following a drone attack in its vicinity.

Ukrainian air defense units were seeking to repeal a Russian air attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, the city’s military administration said.

Kyiv was under air raid alerts from around 0200 UTC alongside most of central and northeastern Ukraine.

Explosions were heard over Kyiv, according to a witness for the Reuters news agency.

sdi/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)