‘We Entered Easily, With Little Resistance’ – Ukraine at War Update for Aug. 15

As Ukrainian forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region enters its second week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Ukrainian troops had “advanced well” that day, despite Moscow’s reinforcements.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelensky reported that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had gained about a mile on Wednesday.

“Today we have advanced well in the Kursk region. We are achieving our strategic goal,” Zelensky said.

To prevent further Russian invasions along Ukraine’s northeastern border, which precipitated Ukraine’s counter-invasion in the first place, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said Ukraine would create a Kursk buffer zone.

“The creation of a buffer zone in the Kursk region is a step to protect our border communities from daily hostile shelling,” he said.

An AFP analysis of data provided by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) estimated that Ukrainian troops had overtaken an area of at least 800 square kilometers, or about 310 square miles, as of Monday.

In interviews with the BBC published Wednesday, Ukrainian soldiers who had just returned from combat said they were surprised that they “entered easily” into Russia when the signal was given last week.

One of the troops, identifying himself only as “Tomash” noted that the element of surprise worked.

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“We entered easily with little resistance. On 6 August, the first groups crossed at night in several [axes]. Almost immediately they reached the western outskirts of the city of Sudzha,” Tomash said.

“The Russian civilians we encounter don’t resist,” he went on. “We don’t touch them, but they either treat us sharply, negatively, or not at all…They also deceive us about the positions of Russian troops,” he added.

Meanwhile, AFP correspondents in Moscow spoke to residents and visitors in the capital who were worried now that the war had finally reached their own doorstep.

“I have relatives living there and they refuse to leave. It’s really hard,” a salesperson, Yulia Rusakova, told AFP. “This whole situation is a big blow. It’s very hard to lead a normal, calm life, knowing that such things are happening there,” she said.

Olga Raznoglazova, a 36-year-old account manager visiting from the Kursk region, said she felt the operation had brought the war closer.

“Now, when it is happening right next door to us... it is a completely different feeling,” she said. “It's very worrying.”

Casualties mount in Zaporizhzhia as Kremin reportedly shuttles in evacuees from Kursk

Continued Russian strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region wounded four more civilians on Wednesday, adding to the list of casualties in the Southern Ukrainian region in Moscow’s weeklong onslaught. Hundreds of bombs and missiles have hit civilian targets in the region’s rural areas over the past week, with at least three dead and more than a dozen injured.

On Wednesday, Russian forces attacked the small settlement of Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, injuring four civilians, according to Ivan Federov, the head of the regional military administration.

“Four people have been injured in a Russian artillery attack on Stepnohirsk,” he announced. “Two men and two women have been injured as a result of the enemy attack on the town of Stepnohirsk.”

The region has seen an escalation in fighting over the past few weeks, and the regional capital’s nuclear power plant was seen to have suffered damage.

There have also been reports of the Kremlin’s plan to relocate evacuees from the Russian Kursk region, now under attack by Ukrainian forces, to frontline areas in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Over the weekend, a civilian was killed and his wife wounded as a result of a missile attack on the village of Novopavlivka, Federov said. He specified that Russian attacks, again, targeted civilian buildings in the village.

Last week, Russians dropped guided aerial bombs on the Vozdvyzhivka village, killing two men and partially destroying a private building.

NATO to establish new bodies in September to deliver aid to Kyiv and closer integrate AFU into the Alliance

NATO released a statement on Wednesday that its highest military body, the Military Committee, will meet in Prague in mid-September to implement the decisions made by Alliance leaders in Washington this July during the Alliance’s 75th anniversary.

“NATO’s highest Military Authority, the Military Committee, will meet from 13 to 15 September 2024, in Prague, Czech Republic. During the in-person meeting, the Chiefs of Defense will discuss military strategic developments within the Alliance. Czech President Petr Pavel will join for the opening of the Military Committee Conference,” a statement from NATO read.

“As the Alliance celebrates its 75th anniversary, NATO leaders are taking major steps to further strengthen deterrence and defense, bolster long-term support to Ukraine, and deepen global partnerships.”

The Prague talks aim to set up the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), a new command that will take over the logistics of delivering Ukrainian aid, and the launch of the NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Center (JATEC), which is meant to derive military lessons from Russia’s invasion and to increase Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and US Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien had “discussed steps that would bring Ukraine closer to joining the Alliance,” Kuleba wrote on social media.