Russia continued with an offensive in eastern Ukraine even as it struggled to repel a cross-border incursion into its territory by Kyiv’s army.
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said it was enormously concerned by fighting near a Russian nuclear power plant because the old Soviet reactors in operation were particularly exposed.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced his message that the war in Ukraine could only be resolved diplomatically ahead of his first visit to Kyiv since Russian forces invaded in 2022.
Russian army presses on in Ukraine despite Kursk incursion
Russia was pressing ahead with an offensive in eastern Ukraine even as it struggled to repel a cross-border incursion into its territory by Kyiv’s army.
Russian military commanders had decided not to redeploy significant forces from the front lines in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region to help dislodge the Ukrainian assault in the Kursk region, said a person close to the Kremlin with knowledge of the discussions.
The first foreign military offensive inside Russia since World War 2 caught the Kremlin off guard and prompted tens of thousands to flee their homes in the region.
With the incursion in its third week, Russia’s military was struggling to mount an effective response, as Ukrainian forces claimed to have expanded their control over more than 1,250 square kilometres of territory. The claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Russian President Vladimir Putin held a televised meeting on Thursday with ministers and regional governors on the situation in Kursk and the neighbouring border regions of Belgorod and Bryansk. He ordered officials to ensure that people who’d been evacuated from the area, which the Kursk regional governor put at 133,000, were cared for, but said nothing about measures to drive Ukrainian forces out of Russian territory.
Russian forces were gradually advancing in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region toward Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub for Ukrainian forces. Local authorities this week ordered an evacuation of civilians from the city.
“Pressure along the entire front line in Ukraine will continue,” said Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the Russian National Defence magazine. “Forces from there won’t be redeployed to Kursk region.”
Some Russian forces had been diverted from Ukraine following the incursion into the Kursk region, though these were unlikely to have been frontline troops, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
“The Kremlin may not be rushing to repel Ukrainian forces from the region and will instead continue to prioritise its offensive operations in eastern Ukraine,” it said.
As many as 40,000-50,000 troops would be needed to take back areas in the Kursk region captured by Ukraine, according to Ian Matveev, an independent military analyst.
Read more: Why Ukraine invaded Russia for first time in conflict: QuickTake
Conscripts may be used in those operations, according to the person close to the Kremlin. While Russian authorities have promised not to send draftees to fight in Ukraine, deployment in Kursk wouldn’t violate that pledge.
It would be a “very risky idea” for Russia to rely on relatively untrained conscripts, said Ruslan Pukhov, head of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. “In general they’re not fit for service.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the military operation aimed to establish a buffer zone in the Kursk region to protect Ukraine’s border communities from Russian attack.
He visited Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, bordering Kursk, for talks with his top general, Oleksandr Syrskyi, according to a post on Thursday on Zelensky’s Telegram channel. They discussed Russia’s advances in the east and Syrskyi reported on steps to strengthen defences near key logistics centres, he said.
Some Ukrainian commanders and soldiers have said poor training among new recruits was contributing to the loss of territory in the country’s east, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, citing combatants it didn’t identify.
Nuclear watchdog sees Chernobyl-style risk at Kursk reactor
The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said it was enormously concerned by fighting near a Russian nuclear power plant because the old Soviet reactors in operation were particularly exposed.
The Kursk Nuclear Power Plant has been thrust on to the frontline of the war between Russia and Ukraine after an incursion by Kyiv’s forces placed them within artillery range, according to International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi.
Making matters worse, the two units in operation use the same RBMK technology that melted down during the 1986 accident in Chernobyl. Unlike modern nuclear reactors, the two units operating near the fighting don’t have extra layers of protection to contain radiation in the event of an accident.
“They don’t have a protective dome around them, just the normal roof, which means that the reactor’s core is pretty exposed,” Grossi said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
“And when you add up the fact that you have advancing troops, objectively speaking within artillery range, then of course this is a source of enormous concern to me and the agency,” he added.
The Chernobyl meltdown left a 2,600 square kilometre exclusion zone in Ukraine, where long-lived radioactive material will take thousands of years to decay. Unlike the 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima, Japan, where secondary containment largely kept the radiation from spreading into the atmosphere, the Chernobyl disaster wafted plumes of radiation over a wide swathe of Europe.
Grossi plans to visit the plant in the next few days, then follow up with a trip to Kyiv, where he expects to speak to Zelensky.
Deteriorating nuclear safety at the Kursk plant underscores the new pressure bearing on Putin since Ukraine’s surprise incursion began earlier this month. Putin started the war when he ordered the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine which was meant to end within days and is now in its third year.
Modi reinforces push for peace, diplomacy ahead of Kyiv visit
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reinforced his message that the war in Ukraine can only be resolved diplomatically ahead of his first visit to Kyiv since Russian forces invaded in 2022.
In an appearance in front of journalists in Warsaw on Thursday, Modi referred to both the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying the fighting was of “deep concern to all of us”. A day before, the Indian leader told a group of Indians living in Poland that “this is not the era of war”.
“No solution can be found on the battlefield,” Modi said alongside Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk during the first visit by an Indian premier to the country since 1979. “We support dialogue and diplomacy for a speedy resolution to the conflicts — and for this India will work with other friendly countries to provide all support.”
Ahead of his trip to Ukraine on Friday, Modi is aiming to balance ties with the West after facing backlash from the US for his high-profile visit to Russia last month to meet Putin.
Modi has agreed to relay messages between Putin and Zelensky, although he won’t play the role of a formal mediator, Bloomberg News reported this week. That reflects New Delhi’s delicate position, given India’s close political and economic ties with Russia, which supplies India with cheap oil and weapons.
Tusk backed Modi’s ambition to work for a peaceful solution during the press statement, which included an announcement of a strategic partnership between India and Poland.
London-based ship registry helps keep Russian oil tankers running
Three oil tankers that are under British sanctions for transporting Russian petroleum are sailing under the flag of a nation that bases its operations in London.
The Galaxy, the Liberty and the Rigel, all of which moved barrels for Moscow this year, have switched to sail under the flag of Barbados, one of the world’s more reputable vessel-registration nations, industry data show. The Barbados Maritime Ship Registry is based at the country’s High Commission in London, which has diplomatic immunity.
The London connection will nevertheless be awkward for the British government, which designated all three tankers this summer for the role they played in helping to destabilise Ukraine. At that point, they had different names, were owned by the Russian state tanker company Sovcomflot, and sailed under the flag of Gabon.
Merchant ships will very often sail under what are known as open registries in countries that are unrelated to where the vessels are beneficially owned. This can be to make compliance with international maritime regulations more efficient and cost-effective. Those so-called flag states have an important role to play in ensuring industry safety standards.
The Liberty, formerly NS Laguna, loaded a cargo of Russian Urals crude at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea on 16 August and was now in the English Channel. Its ultimate destination is India, according to shipping information gathered by Bloomberg.
The Rigel, formerly Primorsky Prospect, recently entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal after delivering a cargo of Russian crude to India.
The Galaxy, formerly Korolev Prospect, arrived off Russia’s Arctic port of Murmansk on 12 August after transiting the Northern Sea Route from the Bering Strait.
Swiss population jumps most since 1960s amid immigration tension
Switzerland’s population rose the most in more than half a century, adding to an increasingly tense debate on whether the country should keep the doors open for immigrants.
The number of Swiss residents is close to nine million, according to data from the Federal Statistical Office released on Wednesday. It increased by 146,900, or 1.7%, in 2023, the biggest percentage increase since the early 1960s, driven largely by refugees from Ukraine being reclassified after a year in the country. DM