Ukraine is continuing its military offensive in the Russian region of Kursk, launched on August 6. Russia claimed on Thursday, August 22, to have foiled several Ukrainian drone and missile attacks in the west of the country. But while this offensive is receiving a lot of attention because it brings hostilities to the attacker’s soil, the epicenter of the fighting remains in the Ukrainian industrial region of Donbass (East), where Russian soldiers have the advantage, being better equipped and more numerous. In the Pokrovsk area, civilians continue to flee.
Key information:
⇒ A series of Ukrainian attacks on Volgograd, in western Russia
⇒ Ukraine continues offensive in Kursk with air attacks
⇒ Russia continues to advance in eastern Ukraine where civilians are fleeing
Ukrainian attacks repelled in Volgograd
Russian air defense “repelled a drone attack on the territory of the Volgograd region in the Marinovka area, most of the drones were destroyed,” local governor Andrei Bocharov said on the Telegram social network.
Following the crash of at least one of these devices, “a fire broke out on the territory of a Defense Ministry facility” before being extinguished, added Adrei Botcharov, indicating that there were no victims.
New air attacks in the Kursk region
In addition, in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, “two Ukrainian missiles and a drone” were destroyed by air defenses, Governor Alexei Smirnov reported on Telegram. Further south, in the Rostov region, an attack carried out with five drones was also reportedly “thwarted”, without causing any damage or casualties.
A drone was also destroyed in the Voronezh region, as well as another in the Bryansk region, their respective governors said. On the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the Russian capital had been targeted by “one of the most significant” Ukrainian drone attacks in its history, according to the mayor of Moscow.
Russia Continues Advance in Eastern Ukraine, Civilians Flee
Despite kyiv’s offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk, Russian troops are continuing their advance towards Pokrovsk, a major logistics hub in eastern Ukraine, from where civilians are fleeing. The Russian army has taken village after village in recent weeks in this sector of the front and is now about ten kilometers from this town of some 53,000 inhabitants, which the Ukrainian authorities have called for urgent evacuation. Anatoli, 60, says he witnessed two bombings. “What a waste! But everyone is alive, thank God. People have left,” he says.
Regional authorities on Monday ordered the “forced evacuation” of families with children from Pokrovsk, a city on a road leading to the Ukrainian strongholds of Chassiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. In a new sign of its advance, the Russian army claimed on Wednesday the conquest of a new village in this sector, that of Jelanné, located about twenty kilometers east of Pokrovsk. On Tuesday, it had announced that it had seized the city of New York in eastern Ukraine, a highly symbolic victory because of its name.
IAEA chief to visit Russian Kursk nuclear power plant
The Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, will soon visit the nuclear power plant in the Russian region of Kursk, which borders Ukraine and is the target of a Ukrainian offensive. “We can confirm” this visit “next week,” a spokesperson for the Agency said on Thursday without giving further details, while the incursion launched on August 6 poses risks to a local nuclear power plant, according to the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom.