Russia has retaken a quarter of Kursk

Published 16 October 2024 at 12.35

Foreign. The Ukrainians have lost control over a quarter of the area in Russian Kursk that they seized after the offensive last summer. This is according to information published in the New York Times.

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Russia has intensified its counterattacks in the Kursk region, retaking several communities previously captured by Ukrainian forces during the summer offensive.

According to data from an independent analysis group, based on geolocated images, Russia has regained control of about 50 square kilometers of its territory, including the villages of Snagost and Novojvanovka. The Russian forces have also reached the outskirts of the village of Olgovka.

The Ukrainian offensive in Kursk began in August and resulted in the Ukrainian forces capturing approximately 1,000 square kilometers of the area. But now the remaining territory has shrunk to about 770 square kilometers, according to the analysis group Black Bird.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported this weekend that a Su-34 plane carried out attacks on Ukrainian forces near the border, where concentrations of Ukrainian military personnel must have been the target.

Despite Russian advances, Ukrainian counterattacks are still ongoing in the region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirms that the fighting has intensified, and that for five days Russian forces have been trying to break through the Ukrainian defenses in Kursk.

Black Bird analyst Emil Kastehelmi believes that Ukraine's defense lines in the area are not sufficiently fortified, which makes the difficulty of holding back the Russian forces.

– It is clear that the Ukrainian lines do not seem to hold very well, he tells the New York Times.