Russians surrounded – The Time

Russia is once again pointing the finger at the West: the weapons supplied to Ukraine, in particular by the United States, are also being used for the sensational ground-air offensive on Russian territory, which has been underway for days in the Kursk region. Kiev has probably used missiles supplied by the US to hit the bridges over the Sejm River, attacks Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, who posted her accusations on Telegram: “For the first time, the Kursk region has been hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS. The attack on the bridge over the Sejm River, in the Glushkovo district, completely destroyed it and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed”.

The moment of the destruction of the bridge over the Sejm in Gluškovo in the Kursk region. pic.twitter.com/Qb91SxK54c

— Andrej Polešchuk (@andrewofpolesia) August 17, 2024

A day after the attack on the strategic infrastructure for the Russians, which is complicating the evacuation of the civilian population, the commander of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mikola Oleshchuk, explained in messages and various comments on Telegram that “Ukrainian pilots use high-precision strikes against enemy strongholds, equipment reserves, as well as logistics centers and supply routes of the enemy,” he said, sharing a video of the attack. The footage, allegedly shot by a drone, shows a single powerful explosion that causes a large part of the bridge to collapse into the river.

Ukrainian experts suggest that the bridge was destroyed by a guided aerial bomb, either a US-made Jdam-Er or a French-made Aasm Hammer. At the beginning of the video, before the explosion, four previous impact points are also visible, consistent with the effects of Himars missile hits.

According to the Ukrainian analytics platform DeepState, which monitors the developments of the conflict, the destroyed bridge is located on the Seim River, north of Glushkovo, one of the districts of the Kursk region in the south of the Russian Federation. Russian military bloggers first reported the destruction of the bridge yesterday evening. According to these Russian sources, the attack is part of the preparations for the Ukrainian operation in the district, which creates a possibility of encirclement of Russian forces deployed there and complicates the mandatory evacuation of 28 settlements, also announced yesterday. “The defense forces are actively targeting river crossings on the territory of the Kursk region to complicate the enemy’s movements,” DeepState stressed on its Telegram channel. According to the same source, satellite photos confirm that Russia has already established a pontoon crossing to the right of the bridge.