Russian forces, even as they scramble to respond to a surprise incursion from northern Ukraine into Russia last week, are continuing to pummel Ukrainian forces along the front lines in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian military officials said Monday.
“Our guys do not feel any relief,” said Artem Dzhepko, a press officer with Ukraine’s National Police Brigade, which is fighting near the strategically important town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
He said Russian forces were continuing to use aerial bombs, as many as 10 a day, against Ukrainian positions. Mr. Dzhepko added: “It’s hard. Unfortunately, the pressure of the Russians did not decrease.”
At the same time, Ukrainian troops have been pushing to the northwest and west in Russian territory, according to a briefing Sunday from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank.
Several thousand Ukrainian troops crossed into Russia on Aug. 6, a new front in the third year of the war and the first time the Ukrainian army has made such an extensive foray into Russia, military analysts say.
Instead of pulling brigades from the front lines in eastern Ukraine to help stop the incursion into Kursk, the region along Russia’s southwest border with Ukraine, Russia appeared to be redeploying lower-level units to the Kursk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War’s briefing.
The analysis described the Russian force as “hastily assembled” and “ill-prepared” to set up the kind of command structures needed to coordinate a military response.
The incursion into Russia marked a significant shift in the war’s narrative.
Since launching their full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russian troops have captured more than 18 percent of Ukraine. A Ukrainian counteroffensive last year failed, and this year, the war has been mainly a slog in the country’s east, with Russian troops grinding forward, largely in the Donetsk region, sometimes a few feet at a time. Ukrainian morale has sank, and pressure has built on Ukrainian leaders to negotiate a deal.
The incursion into Russian territory, far from the front line, was kept so secret that some Ukrainian soldiers and U.S. officials have said they did not know about it in advance.
Since then, Ukraine has said that the offensive aims to pull Russian troops from the east and ease pressure on Ukrainian troops along the front lines. In addition, if the Ukrainians hold on to any Russian territory, that could be used as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with Russia.
So far, Ukrainian forces have captured about 100 square miles of Russian territory and taken dozens of Russian prisoners, according to military analysts and Ukrainian reports. Russian authorities say they have evacuated more than 76,000 people from villages and towns in Kursk. On Monday, the governor of the neighboring region of Belgorod announced that residents from one of its districts bordering Ukraine also needed to leave.
So far, Moscow has not moved troops that are currently fighting in the east of the country, keeping up the pressure on Ukraine, military analysts say.
On Facebook, the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported late Sunday that the Russian army attempted four times to break through Ukrainian defenses along the front line at Toretsk, near the towns of Zalizne, Druzhba and Niu-York. Two attacks were repelled; two were ongoing.
On Monday morning, the attacks near Toretsk continued, said Yevhen Strokan, a senior lieutenant and commander of a combat drone platoon in the 206th Territorial Defense Battalion.
“I don’t feel a decrease in intensity,” Mr. Strokan said. “Everything is being assaulted in the same way.”
He said that the Kursk offensive may need more time to draw Russian troops away.
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