It was unclear when Ukraine carried out the attack
Kiev, Ukraine:
Ukraine said on Sunday it had built a second key bridge in the Kursk region in a bid to disrupt Moscow’s supply routes, as Kiev’s unprecedented invasion of Russian territory stretched into its second week.
Russia, meanwhile, increased pressure in eastern Ukraine, claiming to have captured another village just a few kilometers from the Ukrainian-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
“Minus one more bridge,” Ukrainian air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, publishing aerial video of a blast ripping through a bridge near the Russian city of Zvannoye.
“The Air Force’s aviation continues to deprive the enemy of logistical capabilities with precision airstrikes,” he said.
It was unclear when Ukraine carried out the attack. Oleshchuk gave no date and Russian military bloggers shared photos of the destruction from what appeared to be the same bridge, dated Saturday.
Kiev sent troops and armored vehicles across the border on August 6, the biggest attack on Russian territory since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
On Friday, Ukraine announced it had destroyed a separate bridge in the neighboring town of Glushkovo.
“Our guys are doing a great job in all areas,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday evening about operations in the Kursk region.
The Kursk offensive, he added, was aimed at “creating a buffer zone on the territory of the aggressor,” confirming recent comments by senior Ukrainian officials.
But he reiterated his call for faster delivery of key equipment, targeting Britain, France and the United States in particular.
On the way to Pokrovsk
The attacks on both bridges, which are located on the Seym River that winds through Kursk, have given Russia limited options for crossing the river in the area, according to Russian military bloggers.
Moscow said the destruction of one of the bridges had hampered evacuation efforts.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a briefing that it is pushing back against Ukrainian forces near several villages.
More than 120,000 people have fled the region since the fighting began, Russian officials say.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its forces had captured Svyrydonivka, another frontline settlement about 15 kilometers from Pokrovsk.
Located at the intersection of a major road supplying Ukrainian troops and towns on the Eastern Front, Pokrovsk has long been a target for the Russian military.
Russian troops have been moving toward Pokrovsk for months, capturing a series of small villages as they try to reach the city’s outskirts.
“There have been dozens of attacks in one day,” Zelensky said in his evening speech. “But our units, our brigades are doing everything they can to hold their positions.”
The head of Pokrovsk’s military administration, Sergiy Dobryak, warned earlier this week that Russia was just over 10 kilometers from the city’s outskirts and urged remaining residents to evacuate.
Earlier Sunday, Ukrainian forces said they had thwarted a Russian missile attack on the capital Kiev, where air raid sirens sounded before dawn.
No damage or casualties were reported as a result of the attack, which the government said likely involved “North Korean ballistic missiles of the KN-23 type.”
‘Falling debris’
Ukrainian drones attacked an oil warehouse in Russia’s southern Rostov region early Sunday morning, causing a major fire, the local governor said.
Videos published on social media showed thick black smoke and bursts of flames coming from the site of the fire, which the governor said was in the city of Proletarsk.
“In the southeast of the Rostov region, air defenses repelled a drone attack. As a result of falling debris on the territory of industrial storage facilities in Proletarsk, a diesel fire broke out,” Governor Vasily Golubev said on Telegram.
“At 05:35 (0235 GMT), firefighting at the industrial facility in Proletarsk was suspended due to a second drone attack,” he added in an update to the post.
No one was injured and firefighting resumed shortly afterwards, he later reported.
A Ukrainian intelligence source said the facilities were part of Russia’s “military-industrial complex.”
Proletarsk is located about 250 kilometers from the border with Ukraine and about 350 kilometers from the battle areas occupied by Kiev on the eastern Ukrainian frontline.
Kyiv has repeatedly attacked oil and gas facilities in Russia, several hundred kilometers from the Russian border, since the conflict began, in what the country calls “fair” retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.
Earlier this month, Zelensky praised his troops for attacking oil facilities in Russia, saying the strikes would help bring a “just end” to the conflict.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian authorities in the Donetsk region said four civilians were killed and as many injured by Russian airstrikes.
And further south, in Ukrainian-controlled parts of Kherson, a drone attack on a car injured five people, local investigators said on Telegram.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)