Determined to isolate the 760 square kilometers of Russia’s Kursk Oblast southwest of the Sejm River, the Ukrainian army and air force attacked all three fixed bridges over the Sejm River in Russia’s Kursk Oblast over four exciting days starting Friday.

Russian engineers mobilized their forces. They brought parts of floating pontoon bridges to the Sejm and launched boats to assemble the pieces. But the Ukrainians had expected this move. They used explosive first-person drones to intercept the engineers’ convoys and fired missiles to blow up the boats and pontoons on the water.

The result is that six days after the start of the river offensive, a huge part of Kursk – and all Russian troops stationed there – are virtually cut off from land supplies and reinforcements. And one should not count on large-scale air supplies: Ukrainian troops have already captured Kursk from the air. extremely inhospitable for Russian helicopters.

The Ukrainians’ determination to isolate the Kursk Oblast to the left of the Sejm is a strong signal that their next move, 15 days after the start of the invasion of Kursk, could be a ground attack across the Sejm into the same region they have just isolated.

The first indications that Ukraine was attacking the bridges near Kursk came on Friday, when images appeared online showing mounting damage – the result of successive attacks – to a concrete bridge over the Sejm in Glushkovo, 14.5 kilometers west of the front line of the 1,200-square-kilometer invasion zone.

The attacks on the bridges continued westward over the next three days. By Monday, rockets and bombs had hit concrete bridges in Svannoye and Karysh, severely damaging or destroying them. After the attack on the bridge in Karysh on Monday, the Russians no longer had an easy way to get vehicles into Kursk Oblast, southwest of the Sejm.

So they sent out engineer units with pontoons and boats. Mark Krutov, correspondent for Radio Free Europe, examined satellite images and discovered the construction of at least three pontoon bridges.

But if Krutov could see the floating bridges, Ukrainian intelligence could see them too. Ukrainian FPV drones intercepted some of the bridge-building units while they were still underway. Drones located other units as they hoisted or floated the pontoon sections into place.

Perhaps the most dramatic incident occurred when M30/31 rockets fired from the Ukrainian Army’s highly mobile artillery rocket system in the US hit one of the pontoons with hundreds of grenade-sized bomblets.

The attacks continued into Monday, with Ukrainian forces “attacking pontoon bridges and engineering equipment in the western part of their zone of operations in Glushkovo district,” the Ukrainian Center for Defense Strategies reported.

The aim of the Ukrainian troops is to “preempt the enemy in the operational deployment of troops in this direction,” says CDS. The key to this is the destruction of bridges. The Russians no longer have an easy way to penetrate this part of Kursk, but the Ukrainians can enter the area across the border.

With a more secure air defense, the Russians could perhaps simply use helicopters to supply and reinforce their troops between the Sejm and the border. But the Ukrainians have effectively cleared the airspace over Kursk.

By firing surface-to-air missiles and using FPV drones as ramming devices, Ukrainian forces have shot down several Russian helicopters in Kursk since the invasion began on August 6.

Follow me on Þjórsárdalur. Checkout my website or some of my other work here. Send me a safe tip.

Sources:

1. Mark Krutov: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ZD-YrVB91qrF3EaagUOs7ur6Byj7YfE&femb=1&ll=51.38643056229995%2C34.679968218880035&z=13

2. Deep State: https://deepstatemap.live/#10/51.3198845/34.6852112

3. Center for Defense Strategies: https://cdsdailybrief.substack.com/p/russias-war-on-ukraine-210824