Ukraine-Russia War Updates: Moscow Hits Back in Kursk as Air War Heats Up

A month and a half into its offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region, the Ukrainian Army faces difficult decisions over where best to commit its limited forces.

Moscow’s troops have begun counterattacking in the area, reclaiming a few villages and threatening Ukraine’s ability to hold onto the territory it has seized. At the same time, Russian soldiers in Ukraine have continued advancing on other parts of the front there, which Kyiv had hoped to stabilize by prompting a diversion of Russian units back home to defend Kursk.

At the same time, Ukraine and Russia are engaged in air assaults, targeting each other’s military bases and energy infrastructure as each side tries to degrade the other’s capacity to sustain the war effort. Russia also continues to regularly hit civilian areas in devastating attacks that cause frequent casualties.

Here’s a closer look at the current situation on the battlefield.

Russia has begun to counterattack in Kursk.

In the past few weeks, the front line had been somewhat stable in the Kursk region, which Ukraine first invaded on Aug. 6. As Moscow sent in more troops to reinforce its defenses in the area — as many as 30,000, according to Ukrainian officials — the Ukrainian advance largely stopped and Kyiv has moved to fortify its positions along the more than 500 square miles of territory that it controlled.