EU’s top diplomat says long-range weapons would boost Ukrainian self defence; Scholz says Kursk operation was secretive by necessity. What we know on day 911
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Western suppliers should let Ukraine fire their powerful long-range weapons at targets in Russia, Josep Borrell said on Wednesday. Borrell – who, as the EU’s foreign policy chief, counts as its top diplomat – argued for “lifting restrictions on the use of capabilities vs the Russian military involved in aggression against Ukraine, in accordance with international law”. It would “strengthen Ukrainian self defence by ending Russia’s sanctuary for its attacks” as well as saving lives and advancing peace efforts.
Borrell said the matter would be on the agenda for discussions during back-to-back meetings of EU foreign and defence ministers taking place on 29-30 August in Brussels, involving Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister. After speaking with Kuleba, Borrell also said Ukraine’s Kursk counteroffensive had dealt a “severe blow” to Vladimir Putin’s war narrative.
Ukraine said on Wednesday that to defend the frontline of its Kursk invasion it had destroyed Russian pontoon bridges with US-made Himars rockets. Video posted by Ukrainian special forces showed strikes on several pontoon crossings in Kursk region, where Russia has reported that Ukraine has destroyed at least three permanent bridges over the Seym river as it seeks to hold the pocket of captured land. More on that from the Guardian’s Luke Harding and Dan Sabbagh.
The Ukrainian defence minister, Rustem Umerov, told a visiting delegation of US congressmen on Wednesday that the attack on Kursk aimed to “clear the border from Russian military threats and make enemy shelling and attacks on our towns and villages impossible”.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Kyiv’s advance into the Kursk region has made bigger territorial gains than those made by Moscow in Ukraine this year. Russia, though, has claimed it controls the Ukrainian settlement of Zhelanne, less than 20km (12 miles) to the east of the Donetsk transport hub Pokrovsk, according to the Russian defence ministry.
Ukraine’s military said its forces came under repeated attack on Wednesday around Pokrovsk but were inflicting losses on the attackers, claiming 238 Russian troops were killed or wounded in the same area. Those numbers could not be independently confirmed. The Ukrainian military general staff said there were 46 Russian attacks on the Pokrovsk front over the course of Wednesday; of these, 44 were repelled and two were still underway as of Wednesday night. It did not disclose Ukrainian losses.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces understood what Russia was attempting on the Pokrovsk front and Kyiv was strengthening its forces accordingly. Ukraine’s president urged allies to keep to the agreed timetable for supplying munitions to the Ukrainian military. Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliament’s national defence committee, said that while Russia was pulling some troops out of Ukraine to send to Kursk, “they have a principal position – not to withdraw troops from the Pokrovsk direction”.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Wednesday: “Ukraine has prepared its military operation in the Kursk region very secretly and without feedback, which is certainly due to the situation. This is a very limited operation in terms of space and probably also in terms of time.”
Scholz said Germany would continue to be what he said was Ukraine’s biggest supporter in Europe – a remark that comes amid a struggle within Scholz’s three-way German coalition government to reach a deal on its federal budget. Germany plans to halve its Ukraine aid next year, betting the shortfall will be made up by a G7 plan to loan Ukraine $50bn backed by proceeds from Russian assets frozen in the west.
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