Russia fires glide bombs at Kyiv troops on Kursk border; Russian broker oversees sale of $26.5m of frozen securities

The Russian broker organising an asset swap scheme to free up frozen funds for Russian and foreign investors said on Sunday it had managed to sell another 2.54-billion roubles ($26.51-million) worth of securities to non-resident investors.

Changes announced by Russia to its nuclear weapons policy were long overdue and would probably “cool the ardour” of its Western enemies, said Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in an interview released on Sunday.

Russia fires glide bombs at Ukrainian troops in Kursk region

Russian glide bombs have struck a concentration of Ukrainian troops near the border of Russia’s western Kursk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

It said the attack was directed against “a strongpoint and concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel”, and the bombs were delivered by a Russian Su-34 warplane.

Reuters could not independently verify the strike, and the defence ministry’s brief statement did not give any details on the impact.

Ukraine caught Moscow by surprise on 6 August by bursting across the border into the Kursk region, in the first invasion of Russian sovereign territory since World War 2.

Russia has been trying for more than two months to eject the Ukrainian forces. Earlier on Sunday, the defence ministry in Moscow said it was pursuing offensive operations at several dozen locations in the region.

As of early September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces controlled more than 1,300km² of Kursk, including 100 settlements. On Saturday he said Russian forces had tried to oust Ukrainian troops “but we are holding the designated lines”.

Russia said its forces had taken back several villages last week.

The outcome of the fighting in Kursk could have a significant impact on the course of the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

If it can hold on to a slice of Russian territory, Ukraine will have a valuable bargaining chip in any future peace negotiations.

On the other hand, its decision to commit a substantial force to the Kursk offensive has come with a price elsewhere on the battlefield, as Russia advanced in eastern Ukraine at its fastest pace for two years in August and September.

Russian broker oversees sale of $26.5m worth of frozen securities 

The Russian broker organising an asset swap scheme to free up frozen funds for Russian and foreign investors said on Sunday it had managed to sell another 2.54 billion roubles ($26.51-million) worth of securities to non-resident investors.

Broker Investitsionnaya Palata said this was in addition to 8.1 million roubles worth of securities that were bought out in the first round of the exchange, which ended on 13 August.

“Thus, in total, blocked assets worth 10.64 billion roubles were redeemed during the two stages,” said the broker.

Moscow has presented the plan as a way for both Russian and foreign investors to free up assets that have been blocked by Western sanctions and Russian countermeasures since the start of the war in Ukraine more than two years ago.

Investitsionnaya Palata said it is considering a new redemption of securities after making changes to the swap procedure due to US sanctions imposed on the Russian National Settlement Depository.

Lukashenko says Russian nuclear shift was overdue

Changes announced by Russia to its nuclear weapons policy were long overdue and would probably “cool the ardour” of its Western enemies, said Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko in an interview released on Sunday.

Lukashenko, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, said “hotheads” in the West had already heard the nuclear signals being sent by Moscow even before the Kremlin leader announced the changes last month.

Putin said on 25 September that Russia was extending the list of scenarios that could prompt it to consider launching a nuclear weapon, including if it had reliable information about a massive cross-border attack against it involving aircraft, missiles or drones. He said Moscow would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.

The announcement was the Kremlin's answer to deliberations in the US and Britain about whether to permit Ukraine to fire Western-supplied long-range conventional missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia.

“This doctrine should have been renewed long ago,” said Lukashenko, who last year agreed with Putin on the stationing of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

He told a Russian TV reporter that Western missiles would “already be bombing us, especially Russia” if the West had not paid attention to Putin’s earlier nuclear signals. But the change to the nuclear doctrine “probably cools their ardour”, he added.

Russia captures another village near Pokrovsk 

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Mykhailivka in eastern Ukraine, where they have been advancing towards the important logistics hub of Pokrovsk.

Reuters could not independently confirm the capture of Mykhailivka, which sits alongside a highway southeast of Pokrovsk.

The Ukrainian military said in its daily report that its troops repelled 36 Russian assaults in the Pokrovsk area, including near Mykhailivka. DM