KYIV: A Russian missile strike sparked a blaze in the Ukrainian city of Sumy Saturday, while Ukrainian forces continued to push into Russia’s Kursk border region.
Two people were injured in the Sumy strike, which also damaged cars and nearby buildings, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. It said that the hit had involved an Iskander-K cruise missile and an aerial bomb.
Ukraine’s air force also said it had shot down 14 Russian drones overnight, including over the Kyiv region.
Meanwhile, fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 in a bid to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine.
Alexander Kots, military correspondent with the pro-Kremlin newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, said that Ukrainian pressure in Kursk “is not weakening yet.”
“In the main sections of the ragged front, the situation has stabilized. But there are areas where the enemy continues to try to expand its bridgehead,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Friday that Ukraine had destroyed a bridge across the Seim River in the Glushkovsky district with US-made HIMARS rockets, marking their first use in the Kursk region.
Zakharova’s statement couldn’t be independently confirmed, although the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said that geolocated footage published on Aug. 16 showed that the bridge had collapsed following the strike.
Russian military bloggers said that the destruction of bridges would impede deliveries of supplies to Russian forces, but not cut them off completely.
“No one has canceled the pontoons,” said Kots, stressing that the Seim River is smaller than Ukrainian waterways such as the Dnieper River. “And there are still smaller bridges.”
Russia has seen previous raids on its territory in the war, but the Kursk incursion is notable for its size, speed, the reported involvement of battle-hardened Ukrainian brigades and the length of time they have stayed inside Russia. As many as 10,000 Ukrainian troops are involved, according to Western military analysts.
The incursion, which Russian authorities say has led to the evacuation of more than 120,000 civilians, came as a shock to many, Yan Furtsev, an activist and member of local opposition party Yabloko, told the AP.
“No one expected that this kind of conflict was even possible in the Kursk region. That is why there is such confusion and panic, because citizens are arriving (from front-line areas) and they’re scared, very scared,” he said.
Ukrainian forces have also captured a number of Russian troops as they have moved across the region.
On Friday, the AP visited a detention center in Ukraine, the location of which cannot be disclosed due to security restrictions. Dozens of POWs were seen, some of them walking with their hands tied behind their backs while a guard led them down a corridor. Some had rations of a thin soup with cabbage and onions.
On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukrainian soldiers and commanders for capturing Russian military personnel and said the country’s “exchange fund” that it would use to bargain for the return of Ukrainian POWs was being replenished.
“I thank all our soldiers and commanders who are capturing Russian military personnel, thereby advancing the release of our warriors and civilians held by Russia,” Zelensky said in a post on X.
Missile sparks blaze in Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops push into Russia’s Kursk region
https://arab.news/rj8g5
Missile sparks blaze in Ukraine as Kyiv’s troops push into Russia’s Kursk region
- Two people were injured in the Sumy strike, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service
- It said that the hit had involved an Iskander-K cruise missile and an aerial bomb
Trump administration labels 3 Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations
- The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization
- “These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence,” Rubio said
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s administration has made good on its pledge to label three Middle Eastern branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, imposing sanctions on them and their members in a decision that could have implications for US relationships with allies Qatar and Turkiye.
The Treasury and State departments announced the actions Tuesday against the Lebanese, Jordanian and Egyptian chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they said pose a risk to the United States and American interests.
The State Department designated the Lebanese branch a foreign terrorist organization, the most severe of the labels, which makes it a criminal offense to provide material support to the group. The Jordanian and Egyptian branches were listed by Treasury as specially designated global terrorists for providing support to Hamas.
“These designations reflect the opening actions of an ongoing, sustained effort to thwart Muslim Brotherhood chapters’ violence and destabilization wherever it occurs,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. “The United States will use all available tools to deprive these Muslim Brotherhood chapters of the resources to engage in or support terrorism.”
Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were mandated last year under an executive order signed by Trump to determine the most appropriate way to impose sanctions on the groups, which US officials say engage in or support violence and destabilization campaigns that harm the United States and other regions.
Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said they renounce violence.
Trump’s executive order had singled out the chapters in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, noting that a wing of the Lebanese chapter had launched rockets on Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel that set off the war in Gaza. Leaders of the group in Jordan have provided support to Hamas, the order said.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 but was banned in that country in 2013. Jordan announced a sweeping ban on the Muslim Brotherhood in April.
Nathan Brown, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, said some allies of the US, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, would likely be pleased with the designation.
“For other governments where the brotherhood is tolerated, it would be a thorn in bilateral relations,” including in Qatar and Turkiye, he said.
Brown also said a designation on the chapters may have effects on visa and asylum claims for people entering not just the US but also Western European countries and Canada.
“I think this would give immigration officials a stronger basis for suspicion, and it might make courts less likely to question any kind of official action against Brotherhood members who are seeking to stay in this country, seeking political asylum,” he said.
Trump, a Republican, weighed whether to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization in 2019 during his first term in office. Some prominent Trump supporters, including right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, have pushed his administration to take aggressive action against the group.
Two Republican-led state governments — Florida and Texas — designated the group as a terrorist organization this year.
