WORLD BRIEFING: August 11, 2024

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged for the first time that his military is conducting a cross-border offensive inside Russia's western Kursk region. In his video address late on Saturday, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine's military was pushing the war onto "the aggressor's territory". Kyiv launched its surprise attack on Tuesday, rapidly advancing more than 10km (six miles) inside Russia - the deepest raid since Moscow began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In his address, President Zelensky thanked Ukraine's "warriors", and said he had discussed the operation in Russia with the country's top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi. "Ukraine is proving that it can indeed restore justice and ensure the necessary pressure on the aggressor," he added. Russia has so far struggled to halt the Ukrainian advance, with more than 76,000 people evacuated from the Kursk region and a "counter-terror" regime imposed across three border areas. This means authorities in Kursk, Belgorod and Bryansk regions can restrict the movement of people and vehicles and use phone tapping among other measures. The fighting appeared to be ongoing on Saturday night, with Kursk Governor Aleksei Smirnov saying early on Sunday that there were injured people in a "treacherous" Ukrainian attack. He earlier reported that 13 people were injured late on Saturday when the wreckage of a downed Ukrainian missile fell on a multi-storey building in the regional capital Kursk. The governors of Russia's neighbouring Voronezh and Belgorod regions also reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight. They did not mention any injuries. - BBC

BBC Verify has confirmed the authenticity of a video showing armed Ukrainian soldiers in control of a key Russian gas facility in Sudzha owned by the Gazprom company. “The video alone does not verify the claim that Ukrainian troops have taken the whole town,” BBC said

The acting governor of Kursk oblast in Russia, Alexei Smirnov, said on Saturday night that he had "instructed" the head of the Belovsky district of the region — in southwestern Kursk, near the border to the Sumy region of Ukraine — to "speed up" the implementation of orders to evacuate civilians. Russian authorities have been scrambling to relocate people this week amid a surprise Ukrainian incursion into parts of Kursk. Russia's government has also been keen to describe the incursion as an escalation. Although Ukrainian forces are not thought to control any of the territory, they appear to have established a disruptive presence that stretches quite far into the area, at least based on what analysts can observe via satellite. Russian media, including the state-owned TASS news agency, on Saturday quoted the region's emergency situations ministry as saying that "more than 76,000 people" had been "temporarily relocated to safe places." - DW

An overnight Russian missile attack near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has killed a 35-year-old man and his 4-year-old son, Ukraine's emergency service has said. The bodies of the two were found among rubble by rescue teams after fragments of a missile hit residential buildings in the district of Brovary next to Kyiv, a Telegram posting said. Three other people, including a 13-year-old child, were seriously injured, the emergency service said. - DW

Belarus sent military reinforcements to its border with Ukraine Saturday after it said several Ukrainian drones crossed its airspace and were intercepted by the country’s air defenses on Friday, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said in a statement. “We suspect these are attack drones,” Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko said during a separate briefing Saturday. He called the incident “a provocation” and said “the general staff of Belarus has been ordered to take relevant measures to ensure the security of the state.” - CNN

Although it’s unclear how the offensive will proceed, Ukraine has successfully changed the narrative of the war by breaking into Russia, said Alena Kudzko, vice president for policy and programming at the think tank GLOBSEC.  “Ukrainians are trying hard to change the narrative of the war. Before [Kursk], there was a feeling that the war has become rather predictable, and on many sides, the war was already perceived as frozen,” she said. “By doing this attack, Ukraine actually has managed to demonstrate that there’s really space for making this war unpredictable, that there’s space for surprising Russia.” 

Ukraine’s incursion has put pressure on Russia to divert troops and defend its borders, said Federico Borsari, a fellow with the transatlantic defense and security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “It’s now up to the Russians what they want to do with this offensive in Kursk,” he said. “I think the Russians will try to beat the pressure, even though this means [possibly] giving Ukraine some options elsewhere.”  Still, he added it wasn’t clear yet at this stage whether the attack would have any dramatic effect on the front lines, where Ukraine remains on its back foot, trying to fend off Russian attacks with depleting manpower.  

The Kursk offensive is likely an effort to offset those difficulties, said Rafael Loss, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The most significant problem for Ukraine at this moment is manpower,” he said. “Maybe news about a daring maneuver could motivate some more Ukrainian volunteers to sign up. I’m not sure it’s going to be fundamentally changing individuals’ risk calculus, but it might start to change the tone of the discussions around volunteering.” - The Hill

A major new poll puts Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump in three key swing states, signaling a dramatic reversal in momentum for the Democratic party with three months to go until the election. The vice-president leads the ex-president by four percentage points in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, 50% to 46%, among almost 2,000 likely voters across the three states, according to new surveys by the New York Times and Siena College. The polls were conducted between 5 and 9 August, in the week Harris named midwesterner Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota and a former high-school teacher, as her running mate on November’s Democratic ticket. It provides the clearest indication from crucial battleground states since Joe Biden pulled out of the race and endorsed Harris amid mounting concerns about the 81-year-old’s cognitive wellbeing and fitness to govern for a second term. The results come after months of polling that showed Biden either tied with or slightly behind Trump. - The Observer

A top EU diplomat has said he was horrified by images of a Gaza school hit by an Israeli strike which killed over 100. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Police Josep Borrell said “there’s no justification for these massacres” and added that a ceasefire was the only way to prevent the deaths of civilians. Borrell said the EU fully supports the call by leaders from the US, Egypt and Qatar to conclude ceasefire talks as well as a hostages release deal. He also noted that over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict began and criticised Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich for opposing a ceasefire. - Euronews

Families of victims of an airliner crash in Brazil are gathering Sunday at a morgue and hotels in Sao Paulo as forensics experts work to identify the remains of the 62 people killed in the accident. Local authorities said the bodies of the pilot, Danilo Santos Romano, and his co-pilot, Humberto de Campos Alencar e Silva, were the first to be identified by forensics experts. Sao Paulo state government said in a statement Saturday evening that the remains of all the victims had been recovered. There were 34 male and 28 female bodies in the wreckage, it said. The ATR 72 twin-engine turboprop operated by Brazilian airline Voepass was headed for Guarulhos international airport in Sao Paulo with 58 passengers and four crew members when it went down Friday in Vinhedo, 78 kilometers (49 miles) north of the metropolis. Voepass said three passengers who held Brazilian identification also carried Venezuelan documents and one had Portuguese. - AP

Amid an ongoing backlash against unrestrained tourism in several European countries, a British tourist was caught this week engraving the initials of himself and his family into one of Pompei’s 2,000-year-old houses. The 37-year-old, who has yet to be named, is said to have made five engravings with a blunt object on the wall of the House of the Vestal Virgins. Staff at the site noticed and called the police. According to Italian news agency ANSA, the man apologized, saying that he had written the initials of himself and of his two daughters to leave a sign of their visit to the site, CNN reported

Paris Olympics

• The 2024 Paris Olympics conclude today with a grand closing ceremony. Athletes from 184 countries representing 206 Olympic committees, plus the refugee Olympic team, have been competing for gold in 32 sports, including four new additions.

• In terms of gold medal wins, China is currently in the Number One spot with 39, followed by the United States and Australia. But in terms of total medal wins, the US is on top with 122

• Fielding the smallest-ever team of athletes, Ukraine has managed to clinch the 21st spot on the Olympics medal table with 12 - including three gold. This places the Ukrainian team just behind 20th place finisher, Brazil.

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