Ukraine updates: Russia scrambles against Kursk incursion

Russian prosecutors have requested a 15-year jail sentence for a ballerina who pleaded guilty to treason charges after donating to a pro-Ukraine charity.

Russian-born Ksenia Karelina, who emigrated to the United States in 2012 and obtained US citizenship in 2021, traveled to Yekaterinburg in January to visit her grandparents.

She was detained by the FSB security service after details of a $51.80 (€47.52) donation to the New York-based non-profit organization "Razom" – Ukrainian for "together" – were found on her mobile phone.

The FSB accused her of collecting money that was "used to purchase tactical medical supplies, equipment, weapons and ammunition for the Ukrainian armed forces."

Razom itself describes its activities as "Emergency Response," involving the delivery of medical supplies such as tourniquets and first-aid kits to front-line medics in Ukraine, and other programs including cultural work within the Ukrainian community in the US.

The charity said it was "appalled" to hear what had happened to Karelina, who was not eligible to be included in last week's historic prisoner swap because she had not yet been sentenced.

Her lawyer, Mikhail Mushailov, said he intends to "work in the direction" of a similar deal once the sentence has been handed down next Thursday.

Until then, he is arguing that the request for a 15-year sentence in a penal colony is too severe since his client had cooperated with the investigation.

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said the gas transit station in Russia's Sudzha was still operational and that there had been no contact from Moscow regarding it.

Sudzha is the town in Russia's Kursk region which has reportedly been the scene of fighting after Ukrainian forces launched a cross-border incursion.

The facilities at gas transit station, which are owned by Russian gas company Gazprom, are the only remaining entry point for Russian natural gas into Ukraine before onward transport to Europe.

"Gazprom is feeding Russian gas for transit through the territory of Ukraine in the amount confirmed by the Ukrainian side through the Sudzha metering station," said Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov, confirming 39.4 million cubic meters (mcm) for August 7.

Unconfirmed reports from Russian military bloggers, who are considered close to the Russian armed forces, suggested that Ukrainian troops had captured a gas measuring station at Sudzha, which is about 10 kilometers from the border.

Approximately 40mcm of gas pass through Sudzha every day, with a total annual transit volume of about 14 billion cm.

The current gas deal between Ukraine and Russia expires this year, and Kyiv has said it has no intention of extending it.

With Ukraine engaged in its major cross-border offensive, a Russian attack killed two people in the nearby northern Sumy regionof Ukraine, the head of the regional military administration there said.

Volodymyr Artiukh told Ukraine's national broadcaster that guided Russian aerial bombs had killed a 22-year-old man and his six-year-old sister in a school playground in the border village of Mogritsya.

Moscow troops have stepped up air strikes on Sumy, which borders Russia's Kursk region where Ukraine has launched an incursion.

Artiukh said the area had seen an unprecedented number of air strikes.

"Sumy region has never known such a large number per day," he said, referring to 56 guided bombs dropped by Russia in the past 24 hours.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that the Ukrainian army "know how to surprise and ... how to achieve results," but made no explicit reference to the ongoing incursion into Russia's Kursk region.

Speaking at an event to unveil a new app designed to cut paperwork for the military, Zelenskyy said: "This is demonstrated by the battlefield, where our soldiers not only withstood the overwhelming force of the occupiers, but also are destroying it in the way necessary to protect Ukraine, our state and independence."

While the Russian Defense Ministry claims it is continuing to repel the reported cross-border raid, Ukrainian officials have remained tight-lipped.

The European Union considers Ukraine's ongoing incursion into the Russian border region of Kursk to be "legitimate self-defense" and part of the country's "legitimate defensive war."

A spokesman for the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrel said Kyiv "has the right to defend itself" against the Russian invasion, including "hitting the enemy on his territory."

He reiterated the bloc's "full support for Ukraine" and said the EU would continue to provide "political, financial, humanitarian, diplomatic and military assistance."

Russian forces must press further into Ukraine than the four regions it considers its own, former president Dmitry Medvedev says, in light of Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory.

Medvedev said Moscow's forces should push on into Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mykolayiv, Kyiv and farther. 

The former prime minister said that Russian troops should only stop advancing when it is beneficial to do so.

The Ukrainian embassy has asked the Mexican government to arrest Russian leader Vladimir Putin if he attends the inauguration of president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum.

The Kyiv diplomatic mission, which called Putin a "war criminal," also thanked Mexico for inviting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the ceremony on October 1.

"We are confident that the Mexican government would comply in any case with the international arrest warrant by handing over the aforementioned [Putin] to the United Nations judicial body in The Hague," the Ukrainian embassy said in a statement.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin last year on allegations of war crimes over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. That followed Moscow's full-scale invasion in early 2022.

Juan Ramon de la Fuente, who is touted to be Sheinbaum's foreign minister, said it was "standard protocol" to invite to the inauguration the leaders of every country with which Mexico shares diplomatic relations.

Sheinbaum, who is set to be Mexico's first female president, clinched a historic victory in the country's June 2 general election. 

She is set to begin her six-year term in October. 

The Russian defense ministry says its troops are "continuing to destroy" armed Ukrainian units using air strikes, rocket and artillery fire in the Kursk region, where Kyiv's forces made a significant incursion this week.

Moscow says it is "thwarting attempts to break through" deeper.

A top official in Russia's Kursk region says fighting is continuing for a third day after Ukrainian troops smashed through the Russian border. The audacious attack has forced Moscow to call in reserves.

About 1,000 Ukrainian troops pushed through the frontier in the early hours of August 6 with tanks and armored vehicles. 

They were provided with cover by swarms of drones and pounding artillery, Russian officials said.

While Ukrainian officials haven't commented on the extent of the operation around the town of Sudzha, Kursk's acting deputy governor, Andrei Belostotsky said Russian forces are fighting to stop the Ukrainians from advancing further.

"The enemy has not advanced a single meter, on the contrary, it is retreating. The enemy's equipment and combat forces are being actively destroyed. We hope that in the near future ... the enemy will be stopped," state news agency RIA-Novosti reported Belostotsky as saying.

The independent US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), however, said that "Ukrainian forces have made confirmed advances up to 10 kilometers (six miles) into Russia's Kursk Oblast."

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday described the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk as a "large-scale provocation."

The White House says it is contacting Ukraine to learn the "objectives" of the most serious cross-border incursion into Russian territory by Kyiv's forces in months.

"We're going to reach out to the Ukrainian military to learn more about their objectives," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a press briefing.

Jean-Pierre said Washington supported "common sense" actions by Ukraine to stop attacks by Russian forces.

US President Joe Biden in May permitted Ukraine to use American-supplied weapons against targets just across the Russian border to fend off Moscow's maneuvers into the Kharkiv region. 

However, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said separately that "nothing had changed" about Washington's policy discouraging broader strikes or attacks inside Russia.

Thousands of civilians on both sides of the frontier have been moved after Kyiv's incursion into Russia's Kursk region, which is now in its second day.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller was dismissive of Moscow's condemnations of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"I have seen the statements from the Russian government. It is a little bit rich, them calling it a provocation, given Russia violated Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty," he told a briefing.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has called Niger's decision to cut diplomatic ties with Kyiv "regrettable," adding that Kyiv saw the move as based on false and groundless allegations.

Niger's ruling junta on Tuesday said it was acting in solidarity with Mali, which broke off ties with Kyiv over a Ukrainian military intelligence official's remarks that it said showed Kyiv's support for rebels in northern Mali.

"It is regrettable that the authorities of Niger have decided to terminate diplomatic relations with Ukraine without conducting any investigation into the incident in Mali or providing any evidence as to the reasons for such a step," the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.

Tuareg rebels say they killed at least 84 Russian Wagner mercenaries during fighting in July. The defeat was the heaviest for Wagner since it stepped in two years ago to help military authorities in Mali to fight insurgent groups.

rc/ab (AFP, AP, dpa,Reuters)