It’s the first time the region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, said the Russian Ministry of Defence.
Ukrainian forces have destroyed a bridge over Seim River in Russia’s Kursk region, Russian state-run TASS news agency reported on Friday citing a regional representative of one of the law enforcement agencies.
According to news reports, the bridge was important for the logistics of the Russian military and the evacuation of local residents.
Commander of Ukraine’s Air Force Mykola Oleshchuk posted a video on his Telegram channel on Friday evening showing a bridge being hit. In the description accompanying the video he wrote: “The Air Force aviation is taking an active part in the fighting in the Kursk sector. Ukrainian pilots are conducting precision strikes on enemy strongholds, equipment concentrations, as well as on enemy logistics centres and supply routes.”
Now, Russia claims US missiles are being used in Ukraine’s Kursk campaign.
The US, which has said it cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of US weaponry, officials in Washington said.
Meanwhile, two people were injured early on Saturday morning when a Russian Iskander-K missile struck a residential and shopping area in Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian authorities.
The strike destroyed more than 10 cars, damaged a shopping mall and blew the windows out of several residences.
Firefighters arrived on the scene to put out fires caused by the missile strike.
Oleksandr Khartsys, 37, spent the night in his tattoo studio, near where the missile struck.
“I spent the night here. I woke up from the loud explosion, the doors and windows blew up. I jumped up, and here the cars were burning and blowing up,” he told the Associated Press.
Ukrainian troops have been trying to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine by launching a bold cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Thursday that Pokrovsk and other nearby towns in the Donetsk region were still facing intense Russian assaults.
