Ukrainian forces continue their offensive in Kursk region - ISW

Ukrainian forces continued attacking throughout the Ukrainian salient in Russia's Kursk region on August 20 and recently made additional advances.

That is according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank, Ukrinform reports.

"Ukrainian forces appear to be continuing efforts to strike Russian pontoon bridges and pontoon engineering equipment west of the current Kursk Oblast salient over the Seim River in Glushkovo Raion - geolocated footage published on August 20 shows Ukrainian drones striking Russian equipment bringing pontoons to a staging area near the Seim River about 3km north of Glushkovo," the ISW said.

Geolocated footage published on August 19 shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced westward along Sudzhanskiy Shlyakh Street (38K-030 highway) in eastern Korenevo as well as in fields northeast of Korenevo. Russian milbloggers widely claimed on August 20 that Ukrainian forces continued mechanized assaults on the outskirts of Korenevo and that Russian forces were conducting artillery and airstrikes to contain Ukrainian advances. Geolocated footage published on August 20 shows that Ukrainian forces have also advanced in forested areas north of Russkoye Porechnoye (northeast of Sudzha and 20km from the international border).

Analysts also noted that the Russian military command continues to complicate and bureaucratize its thus-far ineffective command and control structure for the Russian response to the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.

Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov announced on August 20 that he appointed Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov as Deputy Head of the "Coordinating Council" within the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) for military and security issues in Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod oblasts and stated that Yevkurov is already currently in the Kursk region.

Belousov also tasked five members of the Coordinating Council with addressing specific issues related to the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region.

"The increasing bureaucratization of the Coordination Council and other Russian MoD structures dedicated to defending against the incursion into Kursk Oblast will likely create additional confusion within the Russian MoD and friction among the Russian MoD, FSB, and Rosgvardia, all of which are attempting to operate in Kursk Oblast," the ISW said.

In addition, analysts have drawn attention to reports that the Russian authorities have redeployed Russian units from the Chasiv Yar direction to the Kursk region.

ISW previously noted that such deployments could affect the tempo of Russian offensive operations, but that it would likely take several weeks to observe any possible impacts of such redeployments on Russian operations in the Donetsk region.

ISW continues to assess that the Russian military command is likely extremely averse to pulling Russian military units engaged in combat from higher priority sectors in the Donetsk region due to concerns about further slowing the tempo of Russian operations in these directions