(Moscow) Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed on Monday the acceleration of his army’s advance in eastern Ukraine, proof according to him that the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk launched in early August is doomed to failure.
Ukraine suffered a new massive missile and drone attack overnight, targeting the capital, Kyiv, in particular, leaving at least three people injured and damaging an Islamic cultural centre, according to the authorities.
PHOTO SERGEI CHUZAVKOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Men inspect a business center damaged by a missile attack in Kyiv, September 2, 2024.
Ukrainian forces launched a surprise attack on Russia’s Kursk border region on August 6, quickly claiming to have seized more than 1,000 square kilometers and more than 90 localities, including the small town of Sudja.
While official Russian discourse has so far tried to downplay this Ukrainian offensive, which caught Moscow off guard, Mr Putin proclaimed on Monday that it was necessary to “deal with these bandits who have penetrated into Russian territory”.
However, he considered that the Kyiv army had “not achieved the main task [qu’elle] had set itself: to stop the offensive [russe] in Donbass, the industrial east of Ukraine, where most of the fighting is still taking place.
PHOTO VYACHESLAV PROKOFYEV, SPUTNIK, PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
Russian President Vladimir Putin
“So I am sure that this provocation will fail,” he added, referring to the Ukrainian operation in Kursk.
The Russian army has been advancing in eastern Ukraine since the failure of the major Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023 and the fall of the Avdiivka fortress in February, and this advance has accelerated significantly in recent weeks.
Moscow’s forces claim to have captured new villages almost daily and are now less than ten kilometers from the town of Pokrovsk, an important logistical hub that links several Ukrainian strongholds.
For the Ukrainian authorities, who have claimed that the Kursk operation aimed, among other things, to force Russia to redeploy to this region forces currently on the offensive in the east, the bet therefore seems to have been lost.
According to Mr Putin, Russian troops are now advancing several square kilometres in each attack, and not just a few hundred metres as before. “We have not seen such a pace of offensive in Donbass for a long time,” he boasted.
Chain strikes
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky reported a new Russian salvo involving 35 missiles and 23 drones, of which 22 and 20 respectively were shot down.
PHOTO VALENTYN OGIRENKO, REUTERS
A tail section of a Kh-101 missile is seen among the debris of a university sports complex damaged in a Russian strike in Kyiv, September 2, 2024.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia attacked Kyiv and the Sumy and Kharkiv regions (northeast). In the capital, three people were injured, according to the head of the Kyiv military administration, Sergiy Popko.
During the night, loud explosions were heard and seen in Kyiv, according to AFP journalists, who saw people running into the streets to seek shelter.
According to Mr Zelensky, an Islamic cultural centre in the capital was “seriously damaged” by the Russian strikes.
PHOTO SERGEI CHUZAVKOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man enters the premises of the Islamic Cultural Center, which was damaged by a missile attack in Kyiv on September 2, 2024.
In the city of Sumy (northeast), a social and psychological support center for children and an orphanage were hit on Sunday evening by a Russian strike, injuring 18 people, the Interior Ministry announced, without specifying whether it was part of the overnight wave or an isolated attack.
In the Kharkiv region (northeast), a 65-year-old woman was killed in a shelling that hit a residential building in the early morning in Kupiansk, regional governor Oleg Synegoubov announced on Telegram.
“There will be an answer to everything. The enemy will feel it,” said Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential administration.
On the Russian side, during the night, the governor of the Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported a Ukrainian airstrike that left one person injured and damaged, among other things, a kindergarten.
Last week, Russia carried out several massive missile and drone strikes on the Ukrainian power grid and heavily shelled the city of Kharkiv, killing people and injuring dozens, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Ukraine responded by bombing the city and region of Belgorod, using cluster bombs according to Russian authorities, also causing several deaths and dozens of injuries.