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Kursk claims and counterclaims on 13 August 2024
Summary
A look back at a day when competing accounts of the Kursk incursion hardened, alongside a deadly missile strike on Kyiv two days earlier.
What did each side say about the Kursk offensive on 13 August 2024, and what did the claims amount to? On that date, Ukraine said its troops were still advancing in Kursk Oblast and now controlled 74 settlements inside Russia. The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces were fighting the Ukrainians about 28 km (17 mi) from the border.
The two statements describe the same fighting in different terms. Kyiv spoke of territory held and ground gained; Moscow spoke of a fight still some distance from the frontier. Both were official claims made on the same day.
An accusation and a denial
The day before, on 12 August 2024, Kursk Oblast's acting governor, Alexei Smirnov, accused the Ukrainian military of using chemical weapons that poisoned Russian civilians. Ukraine's State Security Service denied the claim and accused Russia of falsifying war crimes. As reported at the time, the exchange added an argument over conduct to the argument over territory.
The strike on Kyiv
The offensive unfolded alongside continued Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities. On 11 August 2024, a Russian KN-23 ballistic missile attack on Kyiv killed two people, including a 4-year-old child, and injured three others.
Taken together, the reports from 11 to 13 August 2024 show a conflict in which fighting on Russian soil, charges of prohibited weapons and missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital were all unfolding within days of one another.
