Key Points
- The bridge was located in Kursk's Glushkov district, where a mass evacuation is underway.
- Ukrainian officials said that they installed a military commandant in the area controlled by Ukraine.
- An aide to Vladimir Putin has accused the West and the NATO alliance of helping to plan Ukraine's surprise attack.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed a bridge over the Seym River in Russia's Kursk region, as they continue with their most significant incursion into Russian territory since the war began in 2022.
Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov said Ukraine had destroyed the road bridge in the region's Glushkov district, where a mass evacuation is underway.
Citing Russian security officials, Russia's TASS news agency said that the bridge's destruction could hinder the relocation of Glushkov's 20,000 inhabitants.
Ukrainian officials said that they had installed a military commandant in the area controlled by Ukraine. According to Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, his forces were advancing between one and three kilometres in some areas in the Kursk region.
Russia's defence ministry for its part said it had repelled a series of Ukrainian attacks along the Kursk frontline.
Syrskyi added that intense fighting continued in Ukraine's frontline in the east, in particular in Toretsk and the strategic hub of Pokrovsk areas.
With Russia ramping up its offensives in Ukraine's east, military authorities in Pokrovsk urged civilians to leave quickly because the Russian army was closing in.
Pokrovsk officials said in a Telegram post that Russian troops are "advancing at a fast pace. With every passing day there is less and less time to collect personal belongings and leave for safer regions".
West and NATO helped Ukraine attack Russia: Putin aide
An influential aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West and the US-led NATO alliance of helping to plan Ukraine's surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region, something Washington denies.
"The operation in the Kursk region was also planned with the participation of NATO and Western special services," said veteran Kremlin hawk Nikolai Patrushev in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper. He did not offer any evidence.
"Without their participation and direct support, Kyiv would not have ventured into Russian territory."
The remarks implied that Ukraine's first acknowledged foray into sovereign Russian territory since Moscow sent its forces into Ukraine in 2022 carried a high risk of escalation.
"Washington's efforts have created all the prerequisites for Ukraine to lose its sovereignty and lose part of its territories," Patrushev said.
Separately, the defence minister of Belarus, which Russia used as one launch point for the conflict in 2022, said there was a high probability of an armed provocation from Ukraine and that the situation at their common frontier was "tense".
What have NATO countries said about Ukraine's incursion into Russia?
The US and Western powers said Ukraine had not given advance notice and Washington was not involved, though weaponry provided by Britain and the US is reported to have been used on Russian soil.
The US, which rejects such allegations but says it cannot allow Russia to seize part of a sovereign neighbour, 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 further into enemy territory.
One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said if Ukraine started taking Russian villages and other non-military targets using US weapons and vehicles, it could be seen as stretching the limits Washington has imposed, precisely to avoid any perception of a direct NATO-Russia conflict.
Britain said on Thursday that weaponry it had given to Ukraine could be used inside Russia to help Kyiv defend itself, and a British source said British Challenger 2 tanks were thought to have been used on Russian territory.
Russia's defence ministry has published footage it said showed a Russian drone destroying a US-made Stryker armoured combat vehicle in the Kursk region.
