War in Ukraine, day 909 | Ukrainian forces destroyed or damaged all three bridges over the Seyim River

(Kyiv) Ukrainian forces have destroyed or damaged all three bridges crossing the Seim River in western Russia, Russian sources said, as Kyiv’s incursion into western Russia entered its third week on Tuesday.

Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is changing the trajectory of the war and boosting the morale of Ukraine’s war-weary population, although the outcome of the incursion – the first attack on Russia since World War II – remains impossible to predict.

Even as Ukraine hails its success on Russian territory, the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine is poised to claim another key center, the city of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s attacks on the three bridges over the Seyim River at Kursk could potentially trap Russian forces between the river, the Ukrainian advance, and the Ukrainian border. Already, they appear to be slowing down Russia’s response to Ukraine’s Kursk incursion, launched on August 6.

Over the weekend, the commander of the Ukrainian air force released two videos of bridges over the Seyim River being hit, and satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC, analyzed by The Associated Press on Tuesday, confirmed that a bridge in the town of Glushkovo had been destroyed.

A Russian military investigator confirmed Monday that Ukraine had destroyed a bridge and damaged two others in the region. The full extent of the damage remains unclear.

“As a result of targeted shelling with the use of rockets and artillery weapons against residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in the village of Karyzh… a third bridge over the Seim River was damaged,” the unnamed representative of the Russian Investigative Committee said in a video posted on the Telegram channel of Russian state TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov.

Russian military bloggers Vladimir Romanov and Yuri Podolyaka and several prominent pro-war Telegram channels in Russia also claimed that the third bridge had been targeted and damaged. Podolyaka’s message was shared by Roman Alekhin, an adviser to the acting Kursk regional governor.

Since the start of the incursion into the Kursk region, the Ukrainian military has captured 1,263 square kilometers and 93 settlements, Ukraine’s top military commander said Tuesday – up from 1,000 square kilometers a week ago. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi made the remarks at a meeting with local officials.

Counterattack

The Russian news agency TASS reported that 17 people were killed and 140 were injured in the Ukrainian incursion, citing an unnamed source in the Russian medical service. Of the 75 people hospitalized, four are children.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday afternoon that more than 500 people had left the dangerous areas of the Kursk region over the past 24 hours. In total, more than 122,000 people have been relocated since the start of the Ukrainian attack, it added.

Another example of Ukraine’s war on Russian soil was the unprecedented fire that lasted for three consecutive days after an oil depot was hit by Ukrainian drones.

The fire at the Proletarsk depot has burned an area of ​​one hectare, according to Russian news agencies. Some 500 firefighters took part in the operation, and 41 of them have already been hospitalized with injuries, according to TASS, citing local officials.

Ukraine incursion exposed Russian vulnerabilities, analysts, officials say

Russia’s six months of fierce fighting in the region after the capture of Avdiivka cost both sides dearly in troops and armor.

Russia wants to control all parts of Donetsk and the neighboring city of Luhansk, which together make up the industrial region of Donbass.

Also on Tuesday, four teenagers were injured after Russian forces struck a park in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, local governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram. A 15-year-old boy later died in hospital, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office. It was unclear what weapon was used, but Fedorov said the site of the impact was just meters from a children’s playground and a cafe.

In the neighboring Kherson region, Russian strikes wounded four men and a 14-year-old boy, local authorities reported. Meanwhile, in the southern Russian region of Belgorod, a Ukrainian drone strike wounded one civilian, according to local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.