Russia-Ukraine war updates: Ukrainian unit with NATO weapons destroyed

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You can read our feature on how Central Asian nations have stayed quiet on Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region here.

You can also read our editorial analysis on how Ukraine leverages limited resources for incursion into Russia’s Kursk here.

We’ll be closing this live page soon but before we do, here’s a recap of the day’s main events:

• A Ukrainian attack has destroyed a bridge over River Seym in the Kursk region.
• White House national security spokesperson John Kirby says the US is set to announce more security assistance for Ukraine in the coming days.
• Russia’s RIA news agency, quoting unidentified security sources, reports that Russian forces destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance and sabotage unit that was armed with weapons from NATO countries in the Kursk region of western Russia.
• Russian state news agencies say at least two people have been killed and more injured when Ukrainian shelling hit a shopping centre in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
• A Ukrainian official says Russian attacks have killed three civilians and injured five within 24 hours in the Donetsk region.
• Military authorities in Pokrovsk, located in the Donetsk region, have urged civilians to speed up their evacuation because the Russian army is quickly closing in on the city.
• Russia says it has repelled a nighttime attack using 12 US-made missiles on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia.
• According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Russia’s Defence Ministry says its forces have taken control of the village of Serhiivka in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister says storage facilities have been set up in the northern region of Sumy to hold and send humanitarian aid to Russian civilians in the Kyiv-held part of Russia’s western region of Kursk.

“The citizens abandoned by Russia are mostly elderly people, people with disabilities, and families with children. They need food, water and medicine,” Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

He didn’t specify how many storage facilities had been set up or where they were, but a video posted on the ministry’s Telegram account showed a large inflatable tent and Ukrainian military personnel carrying parcels and packing food.

During a trip to the Sumy region, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, Klymenko said about 150 food parcels had been sent to civilians in the area.

Russian news agency TASS is reporting that the Ukrainian attack has destroyed a bridge over River Seym in the Kursk region.

The report, citing security officials, added that the attack cut off part of local district and made civilian evacuation harder.

Russia has evacuated more than 120,000 people from towns and villages near the border with Ukraine since Kyiv launched its surprise border incursion last week.

The US is set to announce more security assistance for Ukraine in the coming days, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said.

No details have been released.

Dmitry Birichevsky, head of the economic cooperation department at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, says economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia will remain in place for decades even if there is a peace settlement in Ukraine.

Russia has surpassed Iran and North Korea to become the most sanctioned country by the West after it launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in February 2022.

Despite the pressure, Russia’s economy grew by 4.7 percent in the first half of this year.

“This is a story for decades to come. Whatever the developments and results of a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, it is, in fact, only a pretext,” Birichevsky said.

“The sanctions were first introduced much earlier. Their ultimate goal is unfair competition,” he told a discussion forum in Moscow.

The panel – titled Sanctions Against Russia – Forward into Infinity? – was part of a wider debate in Russian politics and business about whether Moscow should work towards an easing of sanctions or accept them as a long-term reality and learn to work around them.

Putin has said the removal of all sanctions imposed on Russia would be among his conditions for peace.

Russia has added at least nine more people linked to late opposition leader Alexei Navalny to its blacklist of “terrorists and extremists” exactly six months after he died in prison.

Navalny’s former spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, and the chair of his Anti-Corruption Foundation, Maria Pevchikh, were added to the list, according to the website of Russian financial monitoring service Rosfinmonitoring.

Russia added Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s wife, to the list in July.

Rosfinmonitoring is tasked with combatting the financing of people and groups Moscow deems “terrorists” or involved in “extremist activity,” and can freeze the bank accounts of those listed.

Russia’s authorities often apply those labels to dissidents and those who have campaigned against the Kremlin or its offensive in Ukraine.

Navalny’s organisations were outlawed in Russia and are labelled “extremist”, and the opposition leader himself was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges of “extremism”.

The People’s Front, a pro-Kremlin organisation, says two people have been killed while evacuating civilians from Russia’s western Kursk region.

Russia has evacuated more than 120,000 people from towns and villages near the border with Ukraine since Kyiv launched its surprise border incursion last week.

“As a result of a direct hit on a car in one of the Kursk border districts, employees of the People’s Front were killed,” the organisation said in a post on Telegram. “They were helping transport civilians to temporary accommodation centres.”

The group, founded by President Putin more than a decade ago, has been evacuating citizens from areas that have come under fire amid Ukraine’s assault.

One of those killed was a medic, and another was a media coordinator, the group said. A third person was hospitalised with shrapnel wounds and burns.

A Polish deputy prime minister has denied his country’s involvement in the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

“Poland did not take part in anything. It has to be said clearly that this is a lie,” Krzysztof Gawkowski told Polsat News TV channel.

Gawkowski was speaking after former German intelligence chief August Hanning, who held the post between 1998 and 2005, accused Poland of working with Ukraine on the sabotage.

Kyiv has also strongly denied any role.

“It looks like it was a Ukrainian team that acted, according to the results of the investigation,” Hanning said in an interview with the Die Welt daily.

“It is quite obvious that Polish authorities were involved,” he said, calling for Germany to demand compensation from Kyiv and Warsaw.

Gawkowski firmly denied the accusation, saying, “I think this is Russian disinformation resonating through the words of German politicians.”

He added that “either they are acting under the influence” of Moscow “or they know that this will lead to divisions between NATO member states”.

Here are some of the main developments:

• Russia’s RIA news agency, quoting unidentified security sources, reports Russian forces have destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance and sabotage unit that was armed with weapons from NATO countries in the Kursk region of western Russia.
• Russian state news agencies, quoting local authorities, say at least two people have been killed and more injured when Ukrainian shelling hit a shopping centre in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.
• A Ukrainian official says Russian attacks have killed three civilians and injured five within 24 hours in the Donetsk region.
• Military authorities in Pokrovsk, located in the Donetsk region, have urged civilians to speed up their evacuation because the Russian army is quickly closing in on the city, which has for months been one of Moscow’s key targets.
• Russia says it has repelled a nighttime attack using 12 US-made missiles on the Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry says its forces have taken control of the village of Serhiivka in the Donetsk region, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
• Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, says “Ukraine is not interested in occupying Russian territories” but its incursion into Kursk is a “military tool” that can be used “to persuade” Russia to enter “a fair negotiation process”.

An influential aide to Putin has accused the West and NATO of helping plan Ukraine’s surprise attack on Russia’s Kursk region, something Washington has denied.

The US, which has said it cannot allow Putin to win the war, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of US weaponry, officials in Washington said.

But they also expressed worries about complications as Ukrainian troops push farther into enemy territory.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that if Ukraine started taking Russian villages and other nonmilitary targets using US weapons and vehicles, it could be seen as stretching the limits Washington has imposed on their use, precisely to avoid any perception of a direct NATO-Russia conflict.

The acting deputy health minister for Russia’s Kursk region says that more than 140 people, including 10 children, have been injured and admitted to medical facilities since August 6, when Ukrainian forces launched their incursion into Kursk, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.

The agency quotes Pavel Alimenko as saying that there is currently enough medicine and essential items in the region’s medical institutions, and “there is no shortage”.

The news agency also reported that 400 medical workers, including additional ambulance teams and highly qualified specialists from national research centres, have arrived in the Kursk region.

Earlier, we reported that Russian media agency RIA, citing unidentified security sources, reported that Russian forces had destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance and sabotage unit that was armed with weapons from NATO countries in the Kursk region.

RIA has now quoted a Russian security official as saying that “samples of small arms manufactured by the US and Sweden have been seized at the liquidation site of a Ukrainian sabotage group near the village of Kremyanoe in the Kursk region”.

Russian troops seized a Sweden-made Automatic Carbine 5 assault rifle as well as a US-made M4 carbine assault rifle and M2 Browning machinegun, RIA cited the official as saying.

The EU has given two mine-clearing machines and other demining equipment to Ukraine.

The equipment is worth more than 1.8 million euros ($1.98m).

“The EU supports Ukraine in meeting the challenges posed by mine contamination, including through the provision of urgently needed equipment,” said Remi Duflot, charge d’affaires of the EU delegation in Ukraine.

“Our work together saves lives, gives hope and contributes to a better future for Ukraine.”

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko says that 72 percent of Ukrainian military personnel released from captivity by Russia have returned to their duties.

Ukraine’s national broadcaster Suspilne quoted Klymenko as saying that the military personnel who could not continue their service due to their health received the necessary help, including “medical and psychological rehabilitation”.

Suspilne reported that 54 prisoner exchanges had taken place since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with 3,405 people returned from Russian captivity.