Moscow says destruction of bridge in western Russia will hinder the evacuation of civilians amid Ukrainian incursion.
Russia has accused Ukraine of utilizing Western rockets – seemingly made in the US – to focus on a strategic bridge over the Seym River within the Kursk area, killing volunteers making an attempt to evacuate civilians.
Ukrainian forces hit the bridge within the Glushkovsky district of Kursk on Friday as they pushed ahead with their incursion into the territory in western Russia.
“For the primary time, the Kursk area was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, in all probability American HIMARS,” Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian Ministry of Overseas Affairs, stated late on Friday on the Telegram messaging app.
“On account of the assault on the bridge … it was utterly destroyed, and volunteers who have been helping the evacuated civilian inhabitants have been killed.”
Russia’s information company TASS launched the names of two volunteers it stated have been “murdered” within the assault.
Russian officers even have stated the destruction of the bridge will hinder the evacuation of civilians from the realm.
Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk comes simply months after the US and several other of its NATO allies stated in Could that they had authorised Kyiv to make use of their weapons to assault targets inside Russia.
Al Jazeera’s Defence Editor Alex Gatopoulos stated Friday’s bridge bombing will make it tough for Russian forces to defend the realm in opposition to Ukrainian advances and entry provides.
“Russian items there [are] caught between a river and a tough place – not very many locations for them to go for the time being,” he stated.
“Now, there’s going to be a problem for the Russians as a result of if they’ll’t provide these items with the ammunition that they want – and the gas – then these items will likely be pressured to retreat over the river.”
The Ukrainian navy, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022, launched the Kursk offensive earlier this month – a marketing campaign that has been described as the primary incursion by a overseas military into Russia since World Battle II.
On Thursday, Ukraine stated it captured the Russian town of Sudzha, a strategic pure fuel hub within the Kursk area.
Kyiv claims it has taken management of 82 settlements in Russia over an space of 1,150sq km (440sq miles) since August 6.
Ukrainian officers have stated the nation doesn’t goal to carry on to Russian territory. On Thursday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser stated the Kursk incursion will be “used to persuade the Russian Federation to enter into a good negotiation course of”.
Marina Miron, a navy analyst at King’s Faculty of London, advised Al Jazeera that politically, Ukraine is hoping to make use of its Kursk operation “as a bargaining chip” in negotiations with Russia.
“It’s important [that] Ukraine is saying they aren’t going to occupy that land,” stated Miron, noting that the incursion – and using Western tools on Russian oil – “has triggered some issues even when it was accepted that Ukraine is doing this operation to defend itself”.
Kyiv is also making an attempt to “relieve stress” from the Donbas area by drawing Russian troops into Kursk, Miron stated.
That “doesn’t appear to be working as of but, however it’s clear that the Ukrainian forces are attempting to entrench themselves in that area”, she added.
For its half, Moscow has insisted that it’s succeeding in repelling the Ukrainian offensive and inflicting heavy losses on Kyiv’s forces.
On Saturday, TASS reported – citing the Russia’s Ministry of Defence – that Russian forces shot down 10 HIMARS rockets and 35 Ukrainian drones, and killed 420 “enemy servicemen” previously 24 hours.
Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari highlighted that either side are releasing contradictory accounts of what is happening.
“In fact, it’s very tough to independently confirm what is occurring on the bottom,” Jabbari stated. “We’re getting totally different variations of what’s occurring from the Ukrainian aspect in addition to the counter-narrative popping out of the Russian Defence Ministry.”