Russian forces deployed in the western Kursk region are bracing for fresh Ukrainian assaults following “several waves” of attacks over the weekend, Apti Alaudinov, a top Russian Defense Ministry official, said on Aug. 19.
“Yesterday was a hard day, as enemy attacks came in several waves,” Alaudinov told Russia’s TASS news agency.
“Today, we can see the enemy relocating to another area [in Kursk] in order to try to attack from another direction.”
Describing the situation as “controllable,” he said Russian forces deployed in the region were “ready to meet the enemy troops no matter what they do.”
Alaudinov’s remarks come almost two weeks after thousands of Ukrainian troops, backed by tanks and artillery, launched an offensive into Russia’s Kursk region.
Approximately 18,500 square miles in size, Kursk shares a roughly 150-mile-long border with Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
Kyiv says that since the cross-border offensive began on Aug. 6, it has established effective control over roughly 480 square miles of territory in Kursk, including 92 settlements.
Moscow has disputed the claims, but in earlier statements, Russia’s defense ministry acknowledged the presence of Ukrainian troops up to 17 miles inside Russian territory.
Russian authorities, meanwhile, have evacuated tens of thousands of civilians from Kursk and the neighboring regions of Bryansk and Belgorod.
Moscow has sent reinforcements to Kursk, while Russian aircraft and artillery have continued to push back against Ukrainian troop concentrations in the border region.
Like its Ukrainian counterpart, Russia’s defense ministry seldom—if ever—provides casualty figures for its own forces.
According to the website of Ukraine’s defense ministry, Russia has lost 6,070 troops since Aug. 15. The defense ministry did not specify whether those losses occurred as part of the Kursk offensive.
The Epoch Times could not independently verify battlefield claims made by either side.
In an Aug. 18 video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the ongoing offensive in Kursk was “still inflicting losses on the Russian army and the Russian state, their defense industry and their economy.”
The following day, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement carried by Tass that “attacks by enemy assault teams on the settlements of Olgovka, Russkoye, Cherkasskoye, and Porechnoye were repelled.” The settlements are near the Russian border with Ukraine.
The ministry added that Russian forces were continuing to carry out search operations “to detect and eliminate enemy sabotage groups seeking to move deeper into Russia.”
According to Russia’s foreign ministry, Ukrainian forces used Western-supplied munitions to destroy the bridge.
“For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a social media post.
The U.S. State Department did not reply by publication time to The Epoch Times’ request for comment regarding Zakharova’s claims.
U.S.-made HIMARS (high mobility artillery rocket systems), an unspecified number of which Washington has supplied to Kyiv, have a range of up to 50 miles.
In June, the Pentagon granted Kyiv permission to use U.S.-supplied weapons in response to limited cross-border attacks from inside Russia.
Kyiv, however, remains prohibited from using U.S.-supplied long-range munitions to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
The United States has voiced support for Kyiv’s ongoing cross-border offensive. Washington has also repeatedly stressed that it was not told in advance about the offensive or involved in its planning or execution.
“We, of course, are supportive of efforts to disrupt [Russian] operations that might be immediately across the border. But beyond that, there has been no change in policy,” a spokesman for the U.S. State Department said on Aug. 13.
On Aug. 18, Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of Kyiv’s air force, said Ukrainian military aircraft had destroyed a second bridge in Kursk over the Seym river.
“Kursk direction,” he wrote in a social media post. “Minus one more bridge!”
Ukrainian aircraft, Oleshchuk said, “continue to deprive the enemy of logistical capabilities with precision airstrikes, which significantly affects the course of hostilities.”
Putin Aide: Talks on Hold
On Aug. 19, Yuri Ushakov, a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said prospective talks between Moscow and Kyiv were currently out of the question because of Ukraine’s ongoing cross-border offensive.“At this point, given this venture [in Kursk], we are not going to talk,” he said, according to TASS.
Earlier this summer, Moscow laid down its terms for ending the conflict.
These include the full withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from four regions that Russia invaded—and effectively annexed—in 2022 and that Moscow now regards as Russian Federation territory.
Under the Russian proposal, Kyiv would also be expected to drop its ongoing bid to join the Western NATO alliance and commit to a permanent state of neutrality.
According to Ushakov, the Russian proposal—articulated by Putin in June—remains on the table.
“But, at the moment, the negotiation process is completely inappropriate,” he said.
The timeframe for any future talks “depends on the situation, including on the battlefield,” he added.
In previous remarks, Putin said the offensive was aimed at strengthening Kyiv’s position in advance of possible cease-fire talks.
On Aug. 17, Zakharova accused Ukraine of planning an attack on Kursk’s nuclear power plant, according to TASS.
Zelenskyy, however, in an Aug. 19 address, said the military incursion is a matter of security for Ukraine, as it aims to create “a buffer zone on the aggressor’s territory.”
