Last night, Ukrainian forces attempted to strike the Kursk nuclear power plant. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this during a video conference meeting called to review the situation in the Kursk, Bryansk and Belgorod regions, located on the border with Ukraine and recently the scene of military operations by Kiev forces.
“The enemy attempted to strike a nuclear power plant last night. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been informed. and promised to send specialists to assess the situation. I hope that this will be done by them in the end,” the Russian president was quoted by Tass as saying.
“Ukraine drones on Volgograd, fire at air base”
There Russia also says it repelled a drone attack in the Volgograd region and there are reports of a fire at a military site. “Air defense forces repelled a drone attack on the territory of the Volgograd region,” the Moscow Defense Ministry said, adding that Marinovka air base in the crosshairs.
“Most of the drones were destroyed,” they added, acknowledging that one of the downed drones started a fire. There were no reports of casualties, according to the Russian agency Tass. Delays were reported at Volgograd airport for three flights, two of which were headed to Moscow.
The news of the fire at the military base in southern Russia was also reported by the governor of the Volgograd region, Andrey Bocharov, who said that the air defense repelled most of the Ukrainian drones used in the attack, but the fall of a downed drone caused the fire. The governor confirmed that the premises of a military site were affected, without further details. Russian bloggers named the Marinovka air base, 45 kilometers from Volgograd, as the target.
In Moscow, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that 28 Ukrainian drones were intercepted during the night, 13 of them over the Volgograd region.
Sunk Ferry Hit by Kiev in Kavkaz
Not only that. Russian authorities also reported the sinking of a ferry bombed by Ukrainian forces in the port of Kavkaz, in the Kerch Strait in the Krasnodar region in southern Russia. After being hit, a large fire broke out on the ferry carrying fuel tanks. The Krasnodar authorities reported this on Telegram, accusing “the Kiev regime of carrying out another terrorist attack.” The Tass news agency reported that no victims were reported.
A sort of claim of responsibility came from Ukraine via the ‘X’ account of Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, who shared the emoji of a ship with a red x next to it.
Zelensky: “Forward to Kursk”. Moscow advances in Donetsk
Kiev forces have meanwhile captured another settlement in the Russian region of Kursk, from where the Ukrainian offensive into Russian territory began on August 6. This was confirmed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an update on X in which he simply explained that “another settlement in the Kursk region is under Ukrainian control”.
Zelensky said he had “visited the border area in the Sumy region and met with the commander of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrskyi and the head of the military administration” in the region. Syrskyi, the post said, reported on the “operational situation in all zones of active combat, with a special focus on the most difficult areas of the front” and “on measures taken to strengthen the defense in the Toretsk and Pokrovsk directions,” in Donetsk.
According to the authorities in Sumy, Zelenskyi’s message continues, “since the beginning of the operation in Kursk, there has been a decrease in shelling and the number of civilian casualties.” Two days ago, Syrskyi announced that the Ukrainian Armed Forces control “1,263 square kilometers” of Russian territory and “93 settlements” in the Kursk region.
Around 133,000 people have so far fled their homes due to the Ukrainian offensive in the Russian region of Kursk. This was indicated by the acting governor of the region, Alexei Smirnov, during the video conference meeting with President Putin. Smirnov, quoted by the Tass agency, specified that there are instead about 20 thousand people who still remain in the eight districts for which evacuation had been ordered due to security risks.
Meanwhile, the Russian Ministry of Defense has announced that it has control of the locality of Mezhevoye, in the Pokrovsk district.
New measures Moscow against journalists in Kursk
The FSB has opened a criminal case against a CNN journalist and two Ukrainian correspondents accused of “illegally” crossing the border in the Russian region of Kursk, from where Kiev forces entered Russian territory on August 6. They are British journalist Nick Paton Walsh and Olesya Borovik and Diana Butsko, correspondents for Ukrainian media, who entered Kursk to shoot images and report from the town of Sudzha. According to the Russian agency Tass, they face a five-year prison sentence for violating the criminal code for “illegally crossing the state border of the Russian Federation”.
US Embassy in Kiev Warns: ‘Risk of Russian Attacks Rising’
The U.S. Embassy in Kiev is warning of an “increased risk” of Russian strikes in Ukraine in connection with Independence Day, which the country will celebrate in two days. According to the diplomatic mission, a security alert for American citizens in Ukraine issued in the last few hours reads, “there is an increased risk across Ukraine of Russian drone and missile strikes, at night and during the day, in connection with Independence Day in the coming days and weekend.”
The embassy urges people to follow local media for updates, to identify possible places of refuge in advance in the event of an air raid warning, and to take shelter “immediately” if necessary, following the directives of the Ukrainian authorities and emergency responders.
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