Ukraine Uses US Glide Bombs on Strike in Kursk

(AP)

Ukraine on Thursday hit a Russian base in Kursk with U.S. glide bombs, Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram.

“A drone command post, a radio-electronic warfare unit, equipment, weapons, and up to 40 Russian service members were hit,” Oleshchuk said of the strike, which comes amid Ukraine’s surprise incursion into the Kursk region.

Ukraine has seized more Russian territory in two weeks than Russia has seized in Ukraine all year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Ukraine’s forces had advanced 18-21 miles into Russia’s Kursk Oblast and taken control of 93 settlements.

In total, he said Kyiv has captured 488 square miles of Russian territory to date.

Mick Ryan, a military strategist and retired major general in the Australian Army, told the Journal that Ukraine is “holding more-defensible terrain that’s closer to Ukraine and easier to support.”

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said there isn’t much panic in Moscow around the situation in Kursk.

“If [Vladimir Putin] doesn’t find a military solution then this may go on for months or a year,” she said of Ukraine’s foothold inside Russia. “And people in Moscow have got used to this idea.”