Putin’s troops forced back miles by Ukraine’s cross-border attack – live

Ukrainian forces have made big gains in the Kursk battle, making advances over six miles and breaking through two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold.

War monitor the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) confirmed the headway amid the continued mechanized offensive operations on Russian territory.

A Russian insider source claimed to the ISW that Ukrainian forces have seized 45 sq km of territory within Kursk Oblast since they launched the operation two days ago and other Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces have captured 11 settlements.

There was reportedly disappointment among opposition activists in Belarus last week as the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War failed to include any of the hundreds of political detainees held for years by authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The prisoner swap – which came days ahead of the fourth anniversary of the 2020 election, widely viewed as fraudulent, handed Lukashenko his sixth term, sparking widespread protests – saw 16 Westerners and Russian dissidents exchanged for eight Russians held abroad.

The only prisoner freed from Belarus in the swap was Rico Krieger, a German medical worker who was arrested there last year on terrorism charges.

The Viasna human rights group estimates Belarus has about 1,400 political prisoners, including its founder and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski. Like many top opposition figures, Bialiatski is being held incommunicado.

“I am happy to see the Russians released, but I’m shocked that no one remembered about the fate of Belarusian political prisoners,” Bialiatski’s wife, Natalia Pinchuk, told The Associated Press. “I hope it was just the first round of the game involving the West, and Belarusians will also be freed following representatives of Russia.”

Viasna has raised the issue with Western diplomats, listing over 30 political prisoners who need to be released as a priority, according to the group’s representative, Pavel Sapelka.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has called for Moscow’s forces to push further into Ukraine, insisting they must press on to Odesa, Kharkiv, Kyiv and beyond.

Despite Russia’s troops having been pushed hundreds of miles back from advances gained in the early days of their full-scale invasion, with the last year of the war largely characterised by intense fighting for minimal gains, the deputy chief of Russia’s council insisted Russia must expand its aims.

Commenting on the Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk region, Mr Medvedev claimed that Moscow’s operation should no longer aim just to secure the territories Moscow considers its own, and that Russia will stop advancing only when it finds it beneficial to do so.

Ukraine’s air force claims to have shot down two out of four missiles and all four drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack, with a 12-year-old boy reportedly injured in Dnipropetrovsk.

Russia launched two Kh-59 cruise missiles – which Ukraine claimed to shoot down – and two ballistic Iskander-M missiles, according to the report.

The Iskander missiles targeted the northeastern Kharkiv region, the military said. Governor Oleh Syniehubov had not provided a report on the aftermath of the attack as of Thursday morning.

Dnipropetrovsk’s governor Serhiy Lysak said air defences had destroyed a missile over his region in central Ukraine. After various overnight Russian attacks there, the governor said that a 12-year-old boy was injured and two homes were damaged.

Kirovohrad’s Governor Andriy Raykovych said no damage had been reported after air defences worked in the central region.

Russian prosecutors are seeking to jail Russian-American dual citizen Ksenia Karelina, who is accused of treason for making a donation to a charity supporting Ukraine in February 2022.

Prosecutors have asked a court to sentence Ms Karelina to 15 years in jail, Russian news agencies reported on Thursday, citing Karelina’s lawyer – a day after she reportedly pleaded guilty.

Karelina was born in Russia but emigrated to the United States in 2012 and became a US citizen in 2021. The Los Angeles spa employee was arrested by the FSB security service after flying to Russia to visit her family in Yekaterinburg at the start of the year.

Investigators charged her with treason after discovering on her mobile phone that she had donated $51.80 to Razom, a charity which provides aid to Ukraine. The FSB alleged that the ultimate beneficiary was the Ukrainian army. Razom said at the time of her arrest that it was “appalled”.

Intense battles are taking place between Ukrainian forces and Moscow’s troops after one of the largest incursions into Russian territory since Vlasimir Putin’s invasion began – prompting the Russian president to accuse Kyiv of a “major provocation”.

The surprise incursion began on Tuesday morning, when hundreds of Ukrainian troops reportedly entered the Kursk region according to Russia’s Defence Ministry and the area’s governor, Alexei Smirnov. Kyiv has so far remained quiet about the scope of the operation.

Ukraine is reportedly gaining a “foothold” in the Kursk region and could be as far as nine miles (15km) inside the border, according to unverified reports from Russian military bloggers. Telegram Channels affiliated with Russia’s Defence Ministry have claimed that Ukrainian troops are in control of three villages in the Sudzha district of Russia’s Kursk region, which borders the Sumy region of northeast Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces have made confirmed advances up to 10km into Russia’s Kursk Oblast amid continued mechanized offensive operations on Russian territory yesterday, the Institute for the Study of War.

“Geolocated footage published on 6 and 7 August shows that Ukrainian armoured vehicles have advanced to positions along the 38K-030 route about 10km from the international border. The current confirmed extent and location of Ukrainian advances in Kursk Oblast indicate that Ukrainian forces have penetrated at least two Russian defensive lines and a stronghold,” the Washington based think-tank said in its latest assessment.

It cited a Russian insider source who claimed that Ukrainian forces have “seized 45 sq km of territory within Kursk Oblast since they launched the operation on 6 August, and other Russian sources reported that Ukrainian forces have captured 11 total settlements, including Nikolaevo-Daryino (1.5km north of the Sumy Oblast border), Darino (3km north of the Sumy Oblast border), and Sverdlikovo (east of the Nikolaevo-Darino-Darino area), and are operating within Lyubimovka (8km north of the Sumy Oblast border).

Ukrainian forces have also reportedly captured 40 prisoners of war at the Sudzha checkpoint.

It added that Chechen units reportedly suffered very heavy losses in Ukrainian attacks in the Korenovo Raion yesterday.