📹A unit of 24 servicemen from the 22nd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine surrendered in an organized manner in the Komarovka area of the Kursk region, using a specially created Telegram channel for this purpose, a representative of the Russian law enforcement agencies told Sputnik.

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Kursk attack: NATO allies fear escalation could ‘sow division’ among Ukraine’s backers – report 

While some NATO members have supported the Kiev regime’s attack on Russia’s Kursk region, others expressed "misgivings publicly and privately", unnamed Western officials told the Bloomberg news agency. 

Those NATO allies who remain skeptical cited the risk that “the escalation in fighting could divert badly needed [Ukrainian] troops from a fragile front line, and potentially sow division among Kiev’s backers,” the officials argued. 

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, for his part, called the Kursk attack an escalation that would push a ceasefire “further and further away.”

The skeptics consider it unlikely that Ukraine will be able to hold Russian territory in the wake of the attack, according to the sources. 
They added that the lack of clarity over the objectives of the attack remains a “dominant factor” in the matter. 

If Volodymyr Zelensky’s goal is to secure a bargaining chip in the possible negotiations, “the timing of the assault may not play to his advantage,” one of the insiders claimed. 

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby earlier told reporters that the US is in the dark about the purpose of Ukraine’s Kursk attack. He spoke as Russian Presidential Aide Nikolai Patrushev pointed out in an interview with the Izvestia daily that Ukraine’s Kursk aggression was planned with the participation of the US and NATO.

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Ukraine's mounting losses in Kursk region bear "broader impact" on conflict - reports  

The Ukraine military’s heavy losses in Russia’s Kursk region are “particularly considerable” in light of the fact that the Kiev regime “has committed its most capable military assets to the area, including its scarce [UK-supplied] Challenger 2, T-80 and [German-¬made] Leopard tanks,” the Military Watch magazine has reported. 

Speculation is rife that “the high attrition rates in [Ukraine’s] elite units in Kursk could have a broader impact on the war effort should these forces be fully cut off and neutralized,” the news outlet noted. 

The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that Ukraine has already lost up to 2,860 servicemen, 41 tanks, and 40 armored personnel carriers in the Kursk region. 

On August 6, Ukrainian forces began an incursion into the Kursk region, which was described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a large-scale provocation of the Kiev regime.

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❗️Ukrainian troops conducted a drone attack on the road used by the employees of the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant and created a direct threat to the personnel’s safety, the plant’s press service said, adding that there were no casualties.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors present at the Zaporozhye NPP have been informed about the Ukrainian attack and visited the site of the shell landing, the statement read.

"At 7:00 a.m. today [04:00 GMT], a Ukrainian drone dropped a charge on the road that runs along the power units from the outside of the perimeter. The staff is constantly moving along this road. Nobody was injured. But a direct threat to the safety of personnel and the station has been created again," the NPP said in a statement on Telegram.

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📹🇷🇺Russian Grad MLRS paratroopers destroyed the command and observation post of the Ukrainian forces, and disrupted the enemy's rotation on the right bank of the Dnepr river in the Kherson region.

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❗️Two people were injured in Ukraine's repeated attack on the Galaktika shopping center in Donetsk; a house and a market were under fire, Sputnik correspondent reports.

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❗️Russian troops destroyed two HIMARS, four launchers and two AN/MPQ-65 radar stations of the Patriot complex.

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❗️Russian air defense systems shot down 10 HIMARS rockets, two Hammer bombs, and 35 Ukrainian drones

🇷🇺🪖 More statements from the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:  

▪️Units of the Russian Vostok Battlegroup improved their positions along the front line, with Ukrainian militants losing over 105 servicemen;

▪️Ukrainian militants lost up to 680 personnel due to actions by the Russian Yug Battlegroup;

▪️The Russian Tsentr Battlegroup repelled an attack by Ukraine's Lyut assault brigade, struck six enemy brigades, and Ukrainian militants lost up to 420 personnel;

▪️Russian forces destroyed a Su-24 frontline bomber and three Ukrainian Air Force helicopters, including two Mi-8s and a Mi-17, at airfields. The Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed two unmanned boats of the Ukrainian Navy.

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❗️If Ukraine begins to implement criminal plans for a man-made disaster, tough military and military-technical response measures will be taken, Russian Defense Ministry informed.

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Gas prices in Europe soared by 19% in August — data

The average gas price in Europe reached $435 per 1,000 cubic meters in August, according to the trading data on the ICE exchange. By contrast, the average cost of energy was $366 per 1,000 cubic meters in July.

At the same time, gas futures were trading at $390 at the beginning of the month. The sharp increase in quotations began on August 6 against the background of hostilities in the Russian Kursk region, where the Sudzha gas measuring station is located — the only route for the transit of Russian gas to Europe through the territory of Ukraine at the moment. Prices peaked on August 12, rising above $480 per 1,000 cubic meters for the first time since December last year.

For now, Russia's Gazprom supplies gas to Europe through Sudzha in the amount of 42.3 million cubic meters per day.

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❗️The Russian Defense Ministry is taking the information received through independent channels about Ukraine's preparations for a strike on the Kursk nuclear power plant very seriously.

The purpose of this provocation is to accuse Russia of "self-shooting" the station in order to create grounds for attacks on nuclear power facilities in Ukraine.

"We regard such actions by the Kiev regime with the support of Western patrons as a direct and clear violation of the international convention adopted by the UN General Assembly resolution of April 13, 2005 on combating acts of nuclear terrorism,'" the Russian MoD said. 

If the Kiev regime begins to implement criminal plans aimed at creating a man-made disaster with radioactive contamination of vast territories in the European part of the continent, harsh military and military-technical measures will be taken immediately.

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Key statements by the Russian Defense Ministry on Ukraine's incursion into the Russian Kursk region:

▪️Ukraine's losses in the Kursk region during the day amounted to 300 militants, 31 armored vehicles, including three tanks; 

▪️The total losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine during the fighting in the Kursk border area amounted to 3,160 fighters, 44 tanks and 43 armored personnel carriers; 

▪️The Russian Sever Battlegroup is searching for, and destroying, Ukrainian mobile groups in the area of Alekseevsky and Kauchuk settlements in the Kursk region; 

▪️Russian troops destroyed the Iris-T air defense missile launcher and the TRML-4D radar station in the Sumy region.

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❗️The head of Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, discussed the situation at the Kursk and Zaporozhye nuclear power plants with the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, by phone, Rosatom said.

Likhachev stressed that the situation around these nuclear power plants continues to deteriorate.

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More Ukrainian soldiers surrender: Check out the latest on fighting in the Kursk region

In the past 24 hours, Ukraine has lost more than 300 troops and a whole range of military equipment, the Russian Defense Ministry has stated.

In separate developments:

🔸 Russian troops successfully tackled Ukraine’s around-the-clock attempts to break through in the Kursk area, “burning the enemy’s military equipment and destroying their exhausting reserves,” commander of the Akhmat special forces Apti Alaudinov told reporters, adding that more Ukrainian soldiers started “to actively surrender.”

🔸 Twenty-four Ukrainian soldiers earlier surrendered in “an organized manner” to Russian forces near the village of Komarovka in the Kursk area,” a spokesperson for a Russian security agency told Sputnik.

🔸 Russian marines destroyed a Ukrainian motorized convoy consisting of armored vehicles used by NATO countries, an officer of the Marine Corps unit with the call sign Veter (Wind) said in an interview with Sputnik.

🔸 A British Challenger 2 main battle tank supplied to Ukraine has been destroyed in the Kursk region as a result of a Russian drone strike, Britain’s The Sun reported.

🔸 The Kiev regime’s plans to attack the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant with the support of Western patrons is “a direct and clear violation of the international convention adopted by the UN General Assembly on April 13, 2005, on combating acts of nuclear terrorism," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

🔸 Volodymyr Zelensky decided on the Kursk attack so as to hush up the looming defeat of the Kiev regime in Donbass, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Dubinsky, who is in custody in a pretrial detention center on suspicion of treason, wrote on Telegram.

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