Russia Transfers Thousands of Troops from Ukraine to Kursk Region, CNN Reports

The Russian armed forces have transferred several brigades, consisting of at least thousands of soldiers, from Ukrainian territories to the Kursk region of Russia in order to counter the Ukrainian armed forces' offensive. This was reported by CNN on August 15, citing its sources.

Two sources close to Western intelligence stated that Russia is not yet planning to move its large and best-prepared units to the Kursk region. “We have not yet seen significant movements and cannot say why—whether they are just starting to move troops or if they simply have nothing to move,” CNN quoted one of its anonymous sources.

John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the U.S. National Security Council, told CNN that Russian military officials are “moving some resources and some units to the Kursk region to presumably counter everything the Ukrainians are doing.”

According to Kirby, the transfer of troops from Ukrainian territories “does not mean that Putin has given up on military operations in northeastern Ukraine or even in the south, in places like Zaporizhzhia.” He noted that “active combat operations are still ongoing on the battlefield.”

Several sources from CNN reported that the U.S. does not want to allow Ukrainian armed forces to use American long-range weapons to strike targets in the Kursk region, not only due to the risk of escalation but also because they cannot provide Ukraine with many ATACMS missiles. American authorities, according to the newspaper's sources, believe that Ukraine should use available missiles to strike the annexed Crimea.

The Ukrainian armed forces launched an attack in the Kursk region of Russia on August 6. The Chief Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, announced on August 15 that Ukrainian forces control 82 settlements and an area of 1,150 square kilometers in the Kursk region.