Ukraine claims second Kursk bridge attack as Belarus deploys troops to border

Ukrainian forces have struck another bridge in Russia's Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, in an attempt to disrupt Moscow's combat operations in the region, the Ukraine air force said on Sunday.

"One more bridge down. The Air Force continues to deprive the enemy of its logistical capabilities with precision airstrikes," Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said.

The strike appears to have hit a bridge over the Seym River near the village of Zvannoye, about 15 kilometres north of the Ukrainian border.

Oleshchuk did not give details on the exact day the bridge was destroyed. Russian bloggers shared photos from Saturday showing what appears to be the bridge being hit.

On Friday evening, Ukraine announced the destruction of a first bridge near the town of Gluchovsky, also on the Seym river.

On August 6, the Ukrainian army attacked the Kursk region, seizing, according to Kyiv, 82 localities and 1,150 square kilometers in an offensive that surprised Moscow and caught its army off-guard, moving for the first time in a massive and prolonged manner the clashes into Russian territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday his troops had strengthened positions in Russia's Kursk region nearly two weeks into their incursion and called for bold decisions by Kyiv's allies to allow long-range strikes.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Sunday that Ukraine had stationed more than 120,000 troops at its border with Belarus and Minsk had deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border, the Belta state news agency reported.

He did not say exactly how many troops were deployed. Belarus' professional army has about 48,000 troops and around 12,000 state border troops, according to the 2022 International Institute for Strategic Studies' Military Balance.

"Seeing their aggressive policy, we have introduced there and placed in certain points - in case of war, they would be defence - our military along the entire border," Belta cited Lukashenko as saying in an interview with Russian state television.

Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Saturday, Kyiv said it had seen no signs of a Belarusian troop build-up at the border.

Lukashenko, a staunch ally of Vladimir Putin, was speaking against the backdrop of a Ukrainian incursion into Russia that began on August 6 when thousands of Kyiv's troops smashed through Russia's western border in a major embarrassment for Putin's military top brass.

Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin said on Friday there was a high probability of an armed provocation from neighboring Ukraine and that the situation at their shared border "remains tense".

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in the southern Russian region of Rostov early Sunday morning, sparking a major fuel fire, the local governor said. 

Videos posted on social media showed thick black smoke and flames coming from the fire site.

"In the south-east of the Rostov region, air defenses repelled a drone attack. As a result of debris falling on the territory of industrial storage facilities (in the city of) Proletarsk, a diesel fire broke out," Governor Vasily Golubev wrote on Telegram.

"At 05:35 (0235 GMT), firefighting was suspended due to a second drone attack," he added in an update to the message. 

No one was injured and the firefighting resumed shortly afterwards, he later said.

The Ukrainian military confirmed it attacked the Kavkaz oil and oil products storage facility in the Rostov region, saying: "This site stored oil and oil products that also met the needs of the Russian occupation army... Measures aimed at undermining the military-economic potential of the Russian Federation continue."

Proletarsk is located some 250 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and about 350km from the Kiev-held combat zones on the front line of eastern Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it shot down five Ukrainian "aircraft-type" drones overnight, including two over the Rostov region.

Ukrainian forces said they thwarted a Russian missile attack on the capital Kyiv where air raid sirens sounded before dawn on Sunday.

"This is the third ballistic missile attack on the capital in August with a clear interval of six days between each attack," the Kyiv City Military Administration posted on Telegram after the early morning barrage. 

Simultaneous to the missile attack, drones were spotted heading to Kyiv. "All enemy drones were destroyed far outside the city," it added.

No damage or casualties were reported from the attack, which the administration said had "most likely used North Korean ballistic missiles of the KN-23 type".

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