Ukraine war latest: Kyiv hits third bridge in Russia’s Kursk to create ‘buffer zone’

Belarus has sent aircraft, air defence forces and arms to its border with Ukraine, a day after president Alexander Lukashenko said he had deployed nearly a third of his country’s armed forces to the region.

Ukraine says it has not seen an increase in Belarusian troops on the border and called Lukashenko’s statements “rhetoric” aimed at pleasing Mr Putin, who used Belarus as a launchpad to start his invasion in Ukraine in February 2022.

“The group has been significantly increased, and at the moment they are on duty at the southern borders of our country,” Belarus’s air force chief Maj General Andrei Lukyanovich told the state-owned CTV broadcaster.

Aviation, anti-aircraft missile forces, and radio-technical troops were deployed to the border, Mr Lukyanovich said, according to a transcript provided on CTV’s website.

Belarus was also expecting more military aircraft deliveries from Moscow this year and Minsk is putting its efforts into strengthening its anti-drone systems, the senior Belarusian military official said.

“The fact that drones are the plague of the 21st century is obvious,” he said. “This is a headache, which, I think, we will find the means to counter.”

Days after Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Russia’s territory, Lukashenko – a loyal ally of Vladimir Putin – accused Kyiv of aggressive policies and of sending more than 120,000 of its troops to the border with Belarus.

Air defence units were engaged in trying to repel a Russian air attack on Kyiv this morning, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said on Telegram.

Witnesses told Reuters they could hear blasts from what sounded like air defence units in operation. Any casualties due to the aerial attack were not immediately clear.

Cross-border drone and missile attacks by Russia have ravaged Ukraine for nearly 30 months since the start of Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

Ukraine’s assault on Russia’s Kursk region shows Kremlin threats of retaliation were a bluff, Volodymyr Zelensky said last night as he urged Kyiv’s allies to loosen curbs on using foreign-supplied weapons.

Mr Zelensky singled out allies who have supplied long-range weapons but told Kyiv they cannot use them deep inside Russia for fear of crossing “red lines” set out by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Speaking to a gathering of Ukrainian diplomats, he said: “We are witnessing a significant ideological shift – the naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled apart these days.”

Criticising the limitations set by Ukraine’s allies, Zelensky said his troops could not use the weapons at their disposal to hit some Russian military targets. He urged allies to be bolder in their decisions about how to help Kyiv in the war.

“The world sees that everything in this war depends only on courage – our courage, the courage of our partners. On brave decisions for Ukraine, on courage in supporting Ukraine,” Mr Zelensky said.

The latest assessment by Kyiv says Ukrainian forces now control more than 1,250 sq km (483 square miles) and 92 settlements in Kursk region, while Russia said Ukraine had struck a third bridge in the region, complicating Russian efforts to repel the Ukrainian attack.