Russia Relocates Some Troops to Combat Ukraine’s Incursion Into Kursk

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Moscow’s Newest Battleground

One week after Ukraine launched its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Russian forces are still scrambling to fend off Kyiv’s attack. According to Ukrainian army spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy on Tuesday, Moscow has relocated some of its troops from southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to Kursk to try to combat Kyiv’s offensive there. “Russia brought war to others,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday, “and now it’s coming home.”

The Ukrainian operation, which began last Tuesday, marks the biggest foreign incursion into Russian territory since World War II. Local Russian authorities have evacuated nearly 200,000 people in the past week, and acting Kursk Gov. Alexei Smirnov said at least 12 civilians have been killed and another 121 injured.

According to Ukrainian Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi on Monday, Kyiv now controls 1,000 square kilometers (or 386 square miles) of Russian soil. That is significantly more than what Russian officials are publicly estimating, with Smirnov saying Ukrainian troops have pushed 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the Kursk region across a 40-kilometer (25-mile) front and now control 28 Russian settlements. Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi said on Monday that Kyiv is not interested in “taking over” the region.

The Kursk incursion adds a new front to the nearly 30-month war and signifies a major shift in Ukraine’s tactics. In 2022, Kyiv successfully recaptured large swaths of Russian-occupied territory, but Kyiv’s 2023 counteroffensives largely failed to pierce Russian lines. Zelensky told Ukrainians in a public address late Monday that the Kursk incursion was a matter of Ukrainian security. He accused Moscow of using the region to launch around 2,000 attacks targeting Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy Oblast.

In a televised meeting on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his top security officials and regional governors that Kyiv’s attack is an attempt to divert Russian attention from Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and gain leverage for possible future peace talks. “It’s obvious that the enemy will keep trying to destabilize the situation in the border zone to try to destabilize the domestic political situation in our country,” Putin said.

The Kremlin has tried to downplay the attack and distract from the Russian military’s poor preparedness in responding to it, with Putin doubling down on past accusations that Western nations are “fighting us with the hands of the Ukrainians.” He also claimed that Ukraine’s actions have bolstered Russian military volunteer numbers.

On Tuesday, the Russian Defense Ministry published images of Sukhoi Su-34 bombers striking what appear to be Ukrainian troops in Kursk. Putin said Russian forces will continue their offensive in eastern Ukraine regardless of the Kursk incursion and insisted that it would not soften his negotiating position.

Today’s Most Read

What We’re Following

Under siege. A senior U.N. official said on Tuesday that Houthi rebels had stormed the headquarters of the United Nations Human Rights Office in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Aug. 3. The militants seized documents and destroyed U.N. property to punish those working with the organization and foreign governments. U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk demanded that the rebels, who still control the facility, vacate the premises immediately and return all stolen items. It’s unclear why the U.N. office did not make a public statement about the takeover before Tuesday.

The move is part of a broader Houthi crackdown in recent months on people working with the United Nations, foreign aid organizations, and foreign embassies. In June, Houthi rebels detained more than 60 U.N. and nonprofit staffers as part of a larger arrest campaign against an alleged “American-Israeli spy network.” Since then, the U.N. Human Rights Office has suspended operations in Sanaa and other Houthi-controlled areas. The Iranian-backed group supports Hamas’s war against Israel and has regularly targeted ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that it claims are aiding Israel’s efforts, including at least three attacks on a Liberian-flagged oil tanker on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, tensions in the Middle East remain high after Hamas fired two rockets at the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on Tuesday for the first time in months. No casualties were reported. The attack follows Israeli forces killing at least 19 Palestinians on Tuesday in central and southern Gaza, just two days before an Israeli delegation is expected to attend cease-fire and hostage release talks in either the Egyptian capital of Cairo or the Qatari capital of Doha.

Hamas announced on Sunday that it will not attend this week’s talks, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of adding new conditions to purposefully try to block a truce deal. But mediators stressed that securing an agreement is still feasible and vital, especially after three senior Iranian officials revealed that only a cease-fire deal in Gaza would stop Iran from mounting a direct attack on Israel for the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last month.

Restructuring the P-5. Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio called on Monday for Africa to receive a permanent seat at the U.N. Security Council. He argued that adding such a seat would help with ongoing efforts to reform historical injustices against the continent, which was largely under colonization when the council was formed. “The world has changed since 1945. But the composition of the council, despite a few changes, has not kept pace,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in support of Bio’s bid.

The African Union has pushed for the continent to receive two permanent council seats as well as two nonpermanent spots in the past; the current makeup has five permanent seats (held by China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and 10 nonpermanent seats allocated by region, including three for Africa.

“We cannot accept that the world’s preeminent peace and security body lacks a permanent voice for a continent of well over a billion people,” Guterres said. “Nor can we accept that Africa’s views are undervalued on questions of peace and security, both on the continent and around the world.”

New capital in progress. Indonesian President Joko Widodo convened his first cabinet meeting in the planned capital of Nusantara on Monday. The session’s location demonstrated that the massive $32 billion construction project is still on track despite foreign investor concerns and Widodo stepping down in October. Almost all 34 cabinet ministers were in attendance.

“The new capital, Nusantara, is a canvas on which we can carve out the future,” Widodo said. “Not every country has the opportunity or ability to construct a new capital from zero.” The yearslong project will move the capital from Jakarta, which has struggled with overpopulation, to be “functionally running” in Nusantara within four to five years. However, economists are questioning whether incoming President Prabowo Subianto will focus as heavily on the project given his campaign pledge to prioritize welfare funding.

Odds and Ends

Londoners are getting to enjoy the perks of a zoo—without any of the smells. Anonymous street artist Banksy unveiled his ninth animal-themed artwork on Tuesday after more than a week of new pieces appearing each day. The collection now boasts a gorilla lifting a shutter to release other animals, piranhas painted onto a police box, and three monkeys swinging along a railway line, among others. One of the works, showing a wolf on a satellite dish, has already been stolen, and another one, depicting a rhinoceros appearing to climb onto a car, has been defaced. Whether London will find another Banksy piece on Wednesday remains a mystery.

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